Far Lands

I do most jobs around the smallholding by myself, and although most are straight-forward for one person (digging, writing), occasionally I end up holding stuff between my knees, in my mouth, using blu-tac...  Waving my chainsaw about...  Some jobs, however, just need a second person. So, hooray for the weekend! Two-person jobs can get ticked.  First on the list was lopping off a few branches from a sycamore that might shade the fast-approaching foraging hedge (110 trees due to be delivered on Thursday). Some may call this tree surgery. For us, it was more like Carry On Doctor. And quite dangerous. We escaped with a half-job and a nearly mishap. But, hey ho, nothing for nearlies.  Then it was onto the chickens. We captured them and fitted yellow leg rings to their legs (you can just see the ring in the picture). And finally to the raspberries - their wobbly structures needed supporting so as to at least make it through one more year. Although two-person jobs

It's not all been a smooth ride with the chickens to date. Feed them pellets and collect the eggs is what I signed up for. Oh no, like most things in long trousers, it is proving a little trickier. I have blogged before to report a possible disappearance of the brown hen. But, I put that down to doing things on automatic pilot. But no, she went AWOL again. In fact she disappeared last Friday, and I spent a very worrying night wondering where she was. She turned up in the morning, and refused to say where she had been. I threatened to ground her but did not. And when it was time for us to leave for Cambridge she had disappeared again. So we went away with only two chickens in our hen house. My hope was that she was playing away in Eva's hen house, and sure enough when we returned Eva told us of our stowaway. Eva put it down to 'the grass is always greener...' This has all been quite unsettling, especially in light of the loss of our bees. The brown hen is

I have been writing an article on our wood boiler, and trying very hard to interest a weekend broadsheet. No luck at the moment. Below is the synopsis. If anyone wants to read the article please email me. Better still, if anyone has any contacts... Cheaper than chips - synopsis Signing up for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has meant that it is now more cost-effective for James Ellson to have his heating ON rather than OFF. Background to RHI As part of its Renewable Energy Strategy, the government is funding the RHI to increase the uptake of renewable heat technologies including biomass (wood), solar thermal, bio-methane and ground source heat pumps. RHI will contribute to the target (set under the 2009 EU Energy Directive) of 15% of total UK energy consumption being generated by renewable sources by 2020. Phase I of the scheme was rolled out in 2011 solely for non-domestic users, but is due to be extended to domestic users in the Summer of 2013. With less than £3 mi

A quick update on what food I am still managing to collect from the garden. Eggs, of course, but also leeks, a solitary purple sprouting brocoli and kale. The kale in particular has survived the Winter snows well. The leeks less well, not suitable for guests really, but very little of either make the chicken house. Sorry, girls. Winter projects are going well. Foraging hedge prepartions are almost complete (a couple of metres to go). And the bee course is constantly fascinating. It feels a little bit like the horse has bolted. But, I am planning to get some more this Spring or early Summer. Not quite sure how yet - if you have a swarm in your garden, then please let me know asap. (For those legal eagles out there, there is no property in a swarm once you have lost sight of it.) A few interesting bee facts:- (1) Drone congregation zones - drones (male bees) from lots of different colonies (300 or so from each) congregate in these zones in numbers of up to 30 000. They are wai

I have got some terrible news from the smallholding. The bees have not survived the Winter. I am doing my bee course (weekly evening classes) at the moment and the tutor mentioned that a colony of bees (about 10 000 go through the Winter) will need about 20kg of honey to survive. I knew that my bees did not have that much, and so yesterday I went down to give them some emergency feed but found no sign of life. All the bees were half in, half out of the comb cells  which apparently is the classic sign of starvation. I feel awful. Really awful - 10 000 deaths on my conscience. Phoning Ian, the owner of the bees, I reflected rather morbidly that it was lucky that I had been trained in giving death messages. He was quite sanguine, and said it happened to all beekeepers at some point. He went on to tell me that a fox had just killed his 14 chickens. This did not exactly make me feel better but emphasised that a smallholding is about life and death.

...eggs were waiting for us when we got back from La Grave? (Answer at end of post. And you have to work it out to prevent those with peripheral vision indiscipline not guessing.) Ironically it is now snowing hard here and is as cold as La Grave. A little annoying as there are stacks of things to get done outside - pruning the fruit trees, plodding on with the foraging hedge and preparing for the new fruit trees (yes, I have ordered a couple more). Rhubarb (I promise) and today's snow. Some good news on the smallholding however - the rhubarb is showing its head in the new rhubarb bed, and the bantams are laying well. In fact they seem to have laid better while we were away. Perhaps talking to them, at least what I have been saying to them, has not helped. So, how many eggs did they lay in our 10 day absence? (100/5)(+17)(-1)(/6)(x2)(+2)

Just back from a week in La Grave, The Alps. We were meant to be doing some roadside ice climbing, but it was so warm the waterfalls had not frozen properly. Overnight temps were as high as -1C and during the day reached 8 or 9C! On our last day it even started raining. So we were forced to snowshoe... and snowshoe... ...and eat snails, frogs legs and steak frite. I could tell Sarah was on holiday - she really forgot who she was and tried a snail.