Far Lands

Yesterday was a slight improvement, only minus 3C all day. But the wind has been howling and buffeting for over 24 hours . . .  

Woke up to minus 7C and over a foot of snow.  

No, not a new reprobate in the garden eating the veg or despoiling the beds, but the artic cold. About 10cm snow overnight, and minus 5C. It took Sarah 2 hours to drive home last night from Manchester. Cars all over the place. (Not her car.) This morning we got up at 5.30, and I cleared the road and drove her to a taxi in Hayfield. She's now on a train to London! (Yesterday she woke up in Paris.) Photos below show the garden. I fed the chickens porridge (they've been laying 3 eggs a day). I felt like Nick and Heather.

We've had an owl barrel in the garden for some years now, nailed there by the local raptor group. We're always hopeful at this time of year for a pair of nesting tawny-owls. In January we got quite excited because there seemed to be movement in the entrance of the barrel. We could see new nesting material. Which was a bit odd because owls don't take in their own material. We had to supply it! The answer was spotted by Sarah at the weekend. A rather fat squirrel climbing out and scampering away up the sycamore tree. So, yesterday, I decided on action. I geared up. I put on my bee-keeping gauntlets, then on top I pulled on our coal gloves. Then I carried  a squirrel trap and a ladder across the lawn. I set the ladder against the tree. Squirrels pack a nasty bite. Was my tetanus up to date? I climbed up the ladder and peered inside. The barrel was 3/4 full of dry leaves. Poking out of the top was a bob of grey tail. I shoved in a h...

Warnings that eating too much red meat is bad for you, and for the environment (as well as the animals) has led to the emergence of alternatives. Vegetables and cake to name but two. At the weekend we tried crickets. They are high in protein (69%) and supply a reasonable amount of calories in fat. We cooked them in a soya sauce / green pepper stir fry, and we ate them with noodles. Used chopsticks. Conclusions They're quite small for chopsticks - annoyingly small. They're crunchy. They taste of nothing. (Then again, moule only taste of cream and white wine when it's cooked in cream and white wine. Otherwise, mussels taste of sea-water.)

2 eggs this morning. One fell out of the chicken house when I opened its front door. The other was on the ground. Both were very small. No doubt they're from the new chicks. It's taken them 21 weeks. Wise men* predicted it would have to happen one day. * actually, one man and one woman PS I'm back after taking a break! Will be blogging on Tuesdays like usual.

I wrote the following article for the quarterly magazine of the Northern Fruit Group. What’s the point of pears?   They all look the same, they all taste the same and they don’t store well.   This year, however, I was converted. I also found out that they do have a point – a historical one.   My epiphany took place at the end of a cold rainy Dewhurst session – at the close of the Summer. (Dewhurst, for years now, has reliably provided good weather every Wednesday, irrespective of the forecast, the rest of the week, and what it’s doing on my, Hayfield, side of the Pennines.) This year it was different and we suffered on Wednesdays.             So there I was, sitting in my car, engine on, heater on, mug of marmite in my hands, ready to drive away. My car boot was full of wet and claggy waterproofs and tools.             Hilary approach...

We had a stand, near Tree Station and The National Trust. Farlands Smallholding - a greener, more sustainable way of life. For sale:- chicks (by arrangement) comb honey strawberries Sunset apple trees blackberries grafting courses (in March 2018 - spaces still available) At 3pm I gave a short talk  Intro to apples and at 3.45pm I did a demo on whip 'n' tongue grafting. The chickens were a big hit and I almost made it into double figures for my apple talk.

At the weekend we found an unidentified 'thing' in the chicken house. Skin and flesh and hairs, shape of half a finger, and looking like a piece of uncooked chicken. (Not the blue thing - that's a biro.) 'Qu'est ce que c'est?' we asked each other. We now think it's a teratoma which made an appearance a couple of years ago in The Guardian - see https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/teratoma-tumour-evil-twin-cancer The word teratoma comes from the Greek meaning 'monstrous tumour.' The tabloids as you can imagine ran monster headlines when The Guardian was more restrained. But they have a point: teratomas can include hair and teeth and bone. They are made of cells gone awry. Maybe not something for the BBQ.

I have been busy storing apples in our apple-store and I am now into the overflow zone. The overflow zone is a stack of cardboard boxes in a cupboard. The cupboard seemed quite damp and, as I pulled the boxes out, they were wet to the touch. The reason: 2 boxes from last year! So, if you've ever wondered what happens to an apple in a year, here's the answer:- Whiffiness-wise, not too bad. Certainly not like a burger left under the microwave, a teenage error that my mum still reminds me about.

On Saturday we put the chicks into the main chicken house. At dusk we let the other 6 chickens back into the run, and then said 'Good Night'! Fairly traumatic for them and us. The pecking order is a very literal thing in the chicken house.

The thing about fruit trees – a good thing admittedly – is that even a smallish tree is likely to provide copious amounts of fruit. In particular, apples, pears and plums. Two trees or more, and unless you’re the old woman who lives in a shoe, you’re going to struggle to use them. You’ve eaten them for breakfast, lunch and dessert, and snacks in-between. You’ve made pies and crumbles and tarts and charlotte and tarte tatin . You’ve baked muffins and cakes. You’ve jarred up sauces and chutneys and jams. You’ve made fool, fritters and finicky pastries. You’ve brewed wine and made liqueurs. You’ve stored them on every shelf in the garage and you’ve risked botulism to put them in huge jars. You’ve covered them in toffee and shoved them on sticks. You’ve stewed, baked, puréed and fried them. You’ve bobbed them. Lambasted them. You’ve jumped up and down on them and pressed them into juice. You’ve given them away, lobbed them at the postman and thrown them for the dog.   ...

Just back from a long weekend walking (our) next section of the Pennine Way. Cowling to Hawes, about 50 miles in 3 days. Wet and windy - like being at home.

At the weekend we made a dozen entries into the Village Show. Runner beans, French beans, tomatoes x 2, roses, apples, honey, rhubarb and ginger jam, blackcurrant jam, a cucumber, courgettes and . . . this is like the tray game - there's one more and I can't remember it . . . GOT it: a Turk's Head squash (we debated which category, 'rude and amusing' or 'other' (we opted for 'other' for fear of very rude (and common) deformed potatoes)). These were our results: 1st prizes: honey, courgettes, roses 2nd prize: apples ( Katy / Laxton's Superb , King of the Pippins ) 3rd prize: cucumber Impressive, eh? Not really. Only 9 people and a dog entered, and there was no honey category - I had to phone up and ask for a honey category to be added (only one entry - us).

Three weeks ago we checked our 2 hives and we were not sure we would be taking much honey at all. But three weeks constitutes many bee-hours when there are 60 000 bees or so, possibly more across the 2 hives. The situation on Sunday was much improved. We took 2 frames from the WBC (our new colony which we created earlier this year) and added the porter escapes to the National, our established colony. These are one-way doors which overnight remove most of the bees on the frames in the super. Yesterday, we returned to the National hive and removed 5 really good frames. (The porter escapes had done a good job and only a hundred or so bees remained.) Honey harvesting is a serious business!

Last weekend we kicked (not literally, Lesley) the chicks out of the boiler room and into the Turkey House. During the week I stopped liquidising their feed. Yesterday, I introduced them to the lawn. Two or three are roosting. The book for the male-female ratio is doing brisk business. Please get in touch.

Bilberries or w(h)imberries or whortleberries are the UK's rufty-tufty equivalent of the North American blueberry. You have to collect them yourself, and they're not for the starving hungry. Bilberries grow on wild moorlands, are very small and are difficult to collect in any number. A rake helps. Seriously. At the weekend we met my brother near Llangollen, and went bilberry raking. One drawback with raking: you also rake a lot of other stuff up so processing takes a while.   Scores on the doors: 2 hours of raking, 2 hours of processing, 2.3 kilos of bilberries.   CHICK STOP PRESS *Too smelly for boiler room, now in turkey house.*

Some good news, but really it needs to be a lot warmer if the top fruit's going to ripen well. Top photo shows the espalier ( Cox Self-Fertile ) - showing good growth and in the right directions!   Middle photo is the cordon line - a very disappointing amount of fruit. The apples are Katy .   Bottom photo is a plum ( Marjorie's Seedling ) in the tree nursery. It shows an extraordinary amount of growth - over 5 feet since March (now as tall as me). Behind it are its peers. It will be moved into final position (a cordon on the lawn) in March next year.

I've been trying an experiment with my lawn-mowings. We now have a lot of raised beds for all the fruit trees and they get very weedy and take a long time to de-weed. So, I tried laying the fresh grass cuttings straight on the beds. (Saving time on composting too.) In a few days, they went brown. That was a month ago. Today:- No weeds, no grass, nothing. A (minor) miracle. I'm now going bananas with the technique.   Tell your friends, tell the world! And if you're only reading this to see the chicks . . .

We went to the Great Welsh Show yesterday. Left the chicks in charge.   And an idea for the present . . .   Ice-cream or shearing? You decide.