Cracking day of sunshine, but cold, and icy.

We did some more hedging – cutting down some ivy clad trees, much to the joy of the sheep, and opening it up for the smaller saplings and branches that are trying to find light. And we dragged all of the branches from previous cuttings and the tree felling out of the area planned to be the big little woodland. Just have to pop a fence and gate up.  But the ground is frozen.

I like this time between Yule and Christmas day, when all that we do has a large ‘because we want to ‘ edge to it, and grim jobs are left for a less special time.  We retired early, had a short walk, then retreated indoors to cook – I finished making the damson vodka I started in September, and used the boozy fruit to make damson liqueur chocolates.  Himself has done a little DIY towards ‘project housewarm’, and hopefully I will be able to hang a curtain over the back door soon, which should make a difference. There are so many drafts in this house, sometimes appearing in the oddest of places, and we are just attempting to sort them all, one by one.

Cosy in front of the woodburner though.

We were out visiting last night, and came back late, to freezing temperatures – down to – 4. So I expected ice, but we woke to ice, and snow. Only a brief dusting . Cold enough though. 

I walked down to see the chickens and sheep clutching a 2 litre bottle of hot water and I can recommend it too, walking around with a hot water bottle tucked under the coat. Followed by a warm egg to hold in pocket.  Just the thing for a cold day, and the shortest too.

The water was for the water feeders of course. The sheep ignored it, but the hens tucked into their warm water (only warm once it was mixed with the ice) very happily.  One has chosen now to moult and is almost bald.. I worry about her, but think the only intervention (bringing her in) would be far more traumatic than leaving her out, so she shall have to take her chances.

I did have plans, with the beautiful sunny frosty days we have been having, to have a bonfire – partly to get rid of the debris mountain we have accumulated from hedging efforts (this year and last!), and partly because it is traditional, on the longest night, to light a fire to call back the sun. However, this morning’s snow gave way to an afternoon of sleety rain (lethal too, lying wetly over the solid ice), and so we had our fire indoors in the wood burner instead.

And once again, as is tradition (well we have done it for three years now), we toasted the solstice with a glass of elderflower champagne. And the taste snapped me back instantly to the flavour of summer barbecues.   Today’s meal was chicken liver and pork pate – which seemed apt – the treats saved from the year’s animal rearing efforts, and served with freshly baked bread rolls.

and tomorrow, the days will start to lengthen.

Just as we were walking back from delivering village cards, it began to snow.  Big heavy floaty flakes.  I saw nothing in the forecast for this – so a bit of a nice surprise. 

The snow continued whilst we barrowed yet more logs up from the bottom of the field – we even had to break out the woolly hats!. It was actually quite nice, and the ground solid beneath our feet.  By  this afternoon the snow had become rain, and the ground slippery.  Still we barrowed four times, before retiring indoors.

An absolutely huge ham had been roasting in the oven, and I made chicken liver pate from the chicken livers saved all year from our home killed chickens.  In fact we have enough saved in the freezer to make two batches, so have the pleasure of more to come.  I made sausage rolls, from our own pork sausagemeat dontchaknow.  Pity we forgot about them and they got overcooked whilst we were watching Patrick Stewart play Scrooge.  Ho hum – most are ok.

I know by most people’s standards we have cooked and started the ham very early, but we like to start on the ham a week before hand, and it feeds us well until the turkey joins in.

So our first festive meal – ham egg and chips.

but beautiful day.  Had to chuck ice out of the hens and sheep water containers, and the ground stayed frozen all day.  Bitter Northerly wind too, so any notion of working outside went away, just after I finished heaving some of the ivy mountain out to the sheep, and dragging in enough wood to keep us warm tonight.

Indoors though, and much fun and festivity. The last day of home ed today, and the last chapter of  ’a Christmas Carol’ – which always leaves an upbeat beginning to the ‘holidays’.

I made two stollen, one of which is already gone (home made marzipan is the trick.. even marzipan haters love this stuff), yet more mince pies and a batch of calvados butter.

yes, content.

A busy time of year – now we are into our Christmas week of home education, and making mincepies, chocolate log, paper snowflakes etc.  Fun though it is, it is more exhausting than normal HE – when there are chunks of time when he is reading to himself etc. Instead I am getting asthma from reading ‘A Christmas Carol’ out loud. Trying to start a batch of elderflower champagne at the same time as helping with the mincepies etc, then rushing out at 3 to make the most of the failing light and shift a couple of barrow loads of logs up the hill.  Then off late night shopping. 

Not that we needed to do any actual shopping per se, but it’s part of our tradition, and the local town makes a bit of a thing of it, with market stalls, music, fudge (well ok the fudge shop is always there but part of our tradition…)

Home, late, to sort out the elderflower further, deal with the latest  wool dyeing project, and the lard rendering in the rayburn.

Fall into bed, and start again tomorrow…but.. although tiring, rewarding.

We nipped out at lunchtime, walked the 30 second walk to the shop, and bought a little tree standing outside. A mini festive family moment.

It’s an old debate.. which is more eco-friendly? a fake tree or a real. I argue for real.  But there is a certain justification factor going on, as I love a real tree.  We always had one when I was a kid, and I have never had a Christmas without one.  Bringing in the greenery, the evergreens – the tree, and the holly and ivy, the bay and mistletoe, is the most important part of festive decorating for me.

And how do I justify a real tree? Well, we bought it very locally.. supporting our local independent shops.  We checked where they get it from, and it is very local again – not only not imported, but from just up the road. When we are done with it, we cut it up, branches and all, and burn it on our woodburner (well we season the logs for a year first), So although I have heard the argument that growing Christmas trees takes up valuable land that could be growing something more useful, fuel is actually a good use.

Yes, there is a carbon footprint in the form of ‘tree miles’, but I suspect that compares favourably to the carbon footprint of manufacturing a plastic tree, and transporting that, and of course, all the time my real tree was growing, it was locking up carbon. It will be released when we burn it, but I was going to keep warm one way or another.  I guess, if you already have a fake tree, then using it is best.  But I dont. So shall continue to by my tree. This year’s sits in a bucket of water outside waiting for our decorating moment.

I’m tempted into gathering big branches of holly – we have lots in our hedges, and making a tree shape out of that, and decorating in the normal way – it is an old tradition in these parts.

But even more tempting, is to raise our own trees.  We have three growing in pots already, and two of the little ones will come in for a couple of weeks. The larger one needs to grow a bit more and one day will be our living room tree.  We are thinking, perhaps we could buy some little Christmas trees, when we collect our trees for the big little woodland plan, and raise them, in pots, or squeezed in somewhere.. with a view to growing our own, although it is  several years before we could harvest.

So, I’m comfortable with buying a real tree. But I think  it will be great to be self-sufficient, and plan to get there one day.

… we said, one of us will end up AOT trying to push heavy wheelbarrow loads of logs up a slippery rain soaked slope.

It was me.  Just pushing up the last steep bit, suddenly I lost grip with my feet, a few comedy seconds of cartoon style running on the spot and getting nowhere, then woop! my legs went from under me – down I went with a smack, still holding onto the wheelbarrow, which tipped back and all of those logs came crashing out.  And missed me.  So all I am is muddy.  I did have a hasty look round to see who was watching, before I got up (mud from head to toe), reloaded the barrow and carried on.

It’s going to be a long job, carting the logs away… but they have to be moved, before we fence, before we plant the little trees… so rain.. mud.. whatever.. they have to go. 

Isn’t it funny how you can tell the story of how you made a fool of yourself.. but you never want anyone to actually see it!

Advent is upon is.  I dont know how it can be December already – I am not ready!  the advent boxes are out – my son has opened the first one.  Which means I must get on with all those projects I mean to make in time

Finally, after a week of rain and having the lurgy, and being largely confined to indoors, apart from occasional muddy, waterproofs clad outings to visit the animals, today was dry and sunny.  But cold.

We have been getting away with the mild weather all this time, but today was a sharp reminder of the cold that is winter proper.  And of course, I realised how I have let ‘project house warm’ get forgotten over the summer months.

Now plans are once again in place to improve the curtains and draft proofing, and wishing we had got the funds together to replace the front windows for double glazing.

It was nice to have the sun on my face again – and lifted my spirits.  The windy sunny weather dried some clothes and I  cut a load of wood into woodburner size pieces. Of course there is so much more time to cut wood during the long summer days, but it is never on my mind as much as they days we are actually feeding the fire with it.

We can’t hope to supply all our own firewood, although we are doing surprisingly well so far – we haven’t bought any wood for three years, using what was here already, wood from demolition projects etc, fallen trees, pallets (we have a pallet mountain, and could get more if we only got through cutting this lot up), and wood from hedge laying.

We crave a little woodland though.  Finances and space do no allow.  So we thought we would do what we could here.  So that means continue to use scrap wood, try and get the hedges back into health, and plant some trees.  The bottom of our two fields are both very very soggy. This is where the fields meet the leat that is the boundary, and well, it rains a lot here and all that water ends up at the bottom of our fields.  The bottom edge is always wet, very little grass grows, it’s not good for our sheep (think foot rot and fluke), so we thought we would move the fence back a few metres and plant a few native trees.

We were chatting about this to a friend, who happens to be a local tree warden, when he asked if we had applied for the tree grant.  The local council were offering grants to plant trees.  It seems this was almost confidential information – certainly there was nothing about it on their website.. but we tracked it down and applied. We only got the whips on the grant (not the new fence!), but it all helps. So this winter we have some Ash, Willow, Alder and a couple of sweet chestnuts to plant. All whips -but they are supposed to do just as well as older saplings in only a short while. Obviously we wish we had got on with it as soon as we moved in,   the willow sticks, left over from making the willow tunnel, we shoved into a gappy bit of the hedge are really big now…but plans have to develop.

Before they go in, we have to move the fence back and fell a tree.  Not long after we moved in a large ivy clad alder fell down and there are still two large (ivy clad) trunks of the same tree there. A big branch fell off a couple of months ago, and we decided the tree has had it, and was dangerous and best if it was brought down before it fell on us, the sheep, or our new planted trees.  Because we live in a national park, we had to apply for permission.. the local tree warden came, and agreed it should definitely go.

So all we need to do now  take down the old fence (saving as many of the little saplings that have grown into it as possible), cut back branches from next doors field (more light please!) and fell this alder (we shall get help in.. it’s too dangerous and too much for our little bow saws),  put up a new fence, collect the new trees.. plant them all.. and keep the undergrowth down and …..wait….