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.

in search of perfect

One of the best things about growing your own food, is that you get the truth about food, not the perfect unblemished versions the shops would have you believe in. I thought of this today when I collected the eggs, and found a very long and pointy egg.  The hen that was not laying has started again (guess all that muttering of the words ‘chicken casserole’ paid off) , and often at the start you get some odd ones. Double yolkers, tiny no yolkers, and mostly mis-shapes.  It’s still an egg.  In a commercial set up it would not get past inspection.. it would be sold to go into cooking, mayonnaise etc. An so the shopper is presented with uniformly sized perfect eggs. They can sit in the trolley next to the perfect apples, and unblemished courgettes.

I don’t blame the shopper.. how are they to know if they never see anything other than perfect?  Of course, it becomes circular, as then they don’t want anything other than perfect.

But the truth is eggs, veg, (like people), are not always perfect.  We only expect it ’cause we are told to.  carrots are not always straight, eggs sometimes have lumps and bumps, apples sometimes have spots, cabbages can be a little nibbled.  and I celebrate these things as they are all signs of properly grown normal food, - signs of a lack of chemicals and nothing being wasted as it does not look right

besides, where would the fun be if you could not laugh over a funny pointy egg, or a rude parsnip..

nettle soup

#3 in what are nettles good for?  nettle soup.

I cooked nettles last year and found they were horrible.. now I realise the trick is to only pick young nettles, and to only pick the tips. a bit tedious, and gloves are mandatory, but they are free.. and free is my favourite price. There are lots of different recipes out there, but I made my own, along my usual soup making methods, keeping it fairly simple. It’s a winner - really very nice.

Also have bottled some nettle beer.. but it needs a few more days before sampling.. but it does look surprisingly promising.

rebuild the kitchen to get free energy

I remember my mum once telling a visitor that the reason they were insulating the loft was because the garden was falling into the river.

It’s logical really - let me explain.  My parents had chosen to buy  a house with problems, and a large garden, rather than a perfect house with no garden. ( See? it runs in the family). The problem their house had was the retaining wall had been washed away by the small river next door, and the garden was falling down into it.  In order to rebuild the wall they had to dig out the fallen garden. In order to dig out the garden they had to get a hired digger on site. In order to get the digger in, the garage had to be knocked down. Before that happened, they had to empty it of all the stuff that seems to come with you when you move house.  The only place to put it was in the loft.. which had to be floored before the stuff could be stored there.. and before that it was logical to put the insulation down…

Well I think that’s the story.. but hey, I was five. Anyway, my point is, how one job always leads to many more.

Which is why we are going to rebuild yet another wall in our house, because himself wants a wind turbine.

Here’s the logic: Sitting on the hill looking at the moors, himself declares he wants a wind turbine.. free energy and all that.  Boring of me, but I felt obliged to point out a few priorities.  Solar heating was a much more logical way to go, and  more likely to get planning permission (or maybe not even need it with the recent change of rules?), but even better than that is to up the insulation in the house. We have ample loft insulation, but the windows are only single glazed. We are working on that one, hunting down a solution, but it is going to cost.. so saving is what we are doing about that.  Next to that is not wasting energy.. and here the rayburn.. mains gas, is guilty.  Great in the winter, with that on idle and the woodburner we rarely use central heating.  But the summer months and it is a problem.  We turned it off last summer and we will again.. if nothing else it makes the kitchen too hot on a sunny day.  But.. it is our only oven and only hot water supply.  So yes, solar panels would get us out of one problem, but there is no point in getting them if we turn the rayburn on now and then to use the oven.. as it makes hot water as a side line.  So we need to install another cooker which that is on my list of not resolutions for this year anyway. We have another cooker - as we brought the one from the last house… but no where for it to go. 

Major kitchen remodeling. Always difficult doing any work in the kitchen, as you still have to use it. And being frugal/green we are recycling the kitchen we have into a more appropriate set up. Which is a good idea, but there is no buying and putting together of units .. instead its cutting up the ones we have and rebuilding parts. We took down a wall unit, as part of this plan, and behind it found.. vertical counter attached to the wall. Why? because the wall is unable to support a wall unit.. in fact it is barely able to support the revolting blanch mange pink wall paper.. it wobbles with just a tentative prod.

Oh yes. more hardboard.  A little peek behind reveals.. there is no wall. Getting deja vu here.  Not entirely sure what we are dealing with yet.. we need to scrape the terrible tiles off the vertical counter… and take the vertical counter down too, and then peel back the hardboard.  The good news is at least this time it is not a supporting wall (oh no: the death watch beetle eaten beams are what are stopping us arriving in the kitchen whilst still in bed.. the fast way)  - and will be a doddle compared to the last one.

so, because himself wants a wind turbine, we will get solar first and install another cooker, for which we have to remodel the kitchen, which has revealed another wall that needs rebuilding.

I expect we will find something else while we are there. Meanwhile we wreck each and every room in our house.. then go outside as the rain has stopped and the veg must go in now…