According to these people  anyway. I’m not sure if picking nettles for processing as they suggest is actually being ‘nice’ to them…  but I don’t feel like being nice to them at all, as I managed to get stung on the back of my ankle whilst trimming the sheeps’ feet, and it still hurts! *whine*

anyway, that brings me to: what are nettles good for:  #6 plant feed

I got this one from Green Rosie. Basically, we got an old dustbin, filled it with nettles, added water and squished, then put the lid on and left it.  Revisited it and phew! it stinks! Dilute 1:10.  Don’t know yet how good it is as a feed - we shall see.

Today a family trip out to one of our favourites: Tintagel.  Difficult to explain why, as I am not obsessed with Arthurian legend, and there is not much castle there really, but still the whole ruined castle stuck out on a crumbling cliff headland is quite appealing.  It’s obvious how easy it would have been to defend as you have to struggle up steps cut into the cliff face to get to the top (believe me there were lots of stops to ‘check the view’ and gasp for breath!)

We took our son for the first time, a good home ed experience. He is very familiar with the ’sword in the stone’ story, and quite taken with the idea that this might have been Arthur’s birth place.  Personally I doubt it - as there are many places in Britain that claim the same! - but legend is, as I explained to him, a mix of real history and fiction. Who knows what might be real.

These days they offer a landrover ride for a fee up and down the long hilly path to the castle.. good idea for the less able etc.. but we opted to puff back up the path, and rewarded ourselves with an icecream half way.. well it was organic Cornish icecream and it was irresistible to try the honey and lavender flavour!

I would recommend a trip to Tintagel to anyone visiting the area, although there is a lot of climbing steps involved.  The village itself is.. amusing.. as everything seems to be touched with the Arthurian story.. we parked in the ’sword in the stone’ car park, looked in King Arthur’s bookstore.. had lunch at ‘the cross bow Inn’ etc… tacky, but harmless.  May is a good time to go - not crowded.

Also in the village is ‘the old post office’ which is a lovely old building - now owned by the national trust, and shows medieval living set up, and a lovely cottage garden.

Back home to check on the animals and birds.. water the greenhouses, and all the pots hardening off.. running very low on collected water.. it’s been hot for several days now. Tired now..

Another new toy and yes this one was a bit indulgent.. but the egg skelter is so cool, it had to be done.

What a good idea - the eggs are arranged in the order they were laid.. so you eat them in the right order..

take the bottom egg and the rest all roll down; it’s nice to look at  useful and attractive,  and if that was not enough, its locally made here in Devon!

I really hope they are successful with this product.. but not so successful that they lose that friendly touch, like the hand written label warning not to roll the eggs from the very top !

Of course my hens celebrated by laying a teeny egg (thats the cream legbar since it’s blueish) that could not possibly fit…. typical!

Had the sheep shearer come today - nice lad, very competent at his work, kind with the sheep, and takes care over not cutting them. He’s a local lad, and divides his time between here and New Zealand.

Although I think it would be good if we learned to shear.. watching him work.. I realise it’s quite a skill. He was done within half an hour, with minimum stress to the girls  - and that’s the main point of the exercise.

Here’s our before and after pictures:

I couldn’t get a group photo.. for after.  Shirley had the biggest fleece (pictured in the middle in the top picture ) its at least 8 inches long.. even the shearer commentated on it. If we sold through the wool marketing board we would only get pennies, so we are keeping the fleece for ourselves for spinning etc. 

So we have three new fleeces wrapped up in an old duvet cover now lurking in the shed.  Unfortunately we still have two and a half of last year’s fleece, plus half a brown fleece that was given to us.. we really must get on with wool processing.

Problem is we now have no hot water.. with the rayburn off, which makes washing it just a little harder. Himself states this as yet another reason why we should get solar hot water.  I don’t need any convincing!

very hot here today - which actually got in the way a tad, of all the things I wanted to get done - as wilting was not on the list! I burn so easily that I mostly avoid the mid day sun.. perhaps I should take to siestas!

By 4 it was just perfect - and I started to move about again - planted out my third row of peas.  Had a bit of a crisis, as realise we have way more plants than space.. and we now have nine vegetable beds, 8 of which at about 28′x12′, and one smaller one. I have just raised too many plants. its irresistible, as it is never clear what will fail.  Unfortunately not much did, and where they did, I sowed again… but to get rid of perfectly good plants could be hard. Now spending too much time trying to work out how it will all fit, or what plants are higher up the priority list than others.  Not getting anywhere on that one!

We went for a walk and then visited a neighbour who has a solar hot water system installed. The best part of that visit was to a copy of a leaflet stating that planning permission wont be need from the national park authority. We contacted them a little while ago, as the planning laws have changed , making solar panels permissible, but national parks seem to make up their own rules. They have not replied yet.. but no need now.. we have the magic bit of paper.  Now all we need to do is work out what system will be workable with our future plans of woodburning rayburn, etc and how to afford it.. along with affording new windows new door.. and so on. oh and fitting it..

Still, a step in the right direction.

Another barbecue before the mammoth watering rounds. 

I have mentioned a few times that we have too much lawn.. despite digging lots of it up for veg patches.. and plan to bring the fruit garden into the lawn next year.. but still we face the irony of cutting the grass being the only time we use motorised machinery to do any work at our place… we hand cut wood, hand pull nettles, scythe the rest etc etc..

Well himself has been doing a lot of research into push mowers - asking questions on the self sufficientish forums, reading reviews.  He had just come to a conclusion, when which? magazine did a review on a whole load of push mowers.. and came up with the same one. The Brill Razorcut38. It’s not the cheapest..but the reviews were the best.

It came today! It was impressively unhindered with unnecessary packaging (nice if you go to some effort to buy an eco-friendly product!), easy to put together and is pretty sturdy and well built. Himself got to push it for ten feet before he had to stop… because our son charged off with it and proceeded to mow the entire lawn. I guess that’s a recommendation, that it is so light and easy to use, a child with a disability can mow a large lawn.  He  was very taken with the whole idea, as he sees himself cutting grass for a job.. but is put off by the petrol engine (understandably),..

I guess the old petrol mower that we brought with us might make the occasional outing, maybe the first cut of the year?  But after that I can see us using our new toy - its so light and easy to use, less work then the petrol mower.  We have a second petrol mower that was left behind by the previous owner.. we can freecycle that now, and look forward to petrol free, quieter mowing.  With any luck.. our son will carry on being enthused!

Yes, the brill is… brill.

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.

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.

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.

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.