Felt Flowers

17th March 2018
Cooking and Crafts for a Cold Day
More snow and biting cold easterlies again. It wasn't the best day to choose to move a new house into the turkey enclosure, but they have started laying now and need somewhere to sit.
That was it for outdoor jobs. This was a perfect day for cooking and crafts.

First up was a parsnip cake - a bit like carrot cake but, you've guessed it, with parsnips instead. Easy apart from the grated parsnips!
I had dug up too many parsnips so made parsnip and potato hash browns for the freezer too. It's astonishing how much mess grating a kg of root veg can make!
The parsnips are lovely and sweet now - reputedly they sweeten up if left to stand a few frosts.

Next up was my first ever felting. Sue purchased a box full of different coloured merino wool for her birthday. One day we hope to be able to prepare our own wool from the Shetland sheep and dye them with natural dyes from the farm.
The actual process of felting is somewhat magical. You simply arrange tufts of wool as you want them, which is hard to judge when you've no idea what's going to happen, then agitate them with increasing vigour sandwiched between layers of bubblewrap. The fibres of the wool intermingle inextricably until felt is formed. And that's it.

Mine is the best one. 

18th March 2018
Things are Looking Up
A busy day ahead. It started well with Ewe 0004 finally standing up and looking a little stronger. I am still feeding her the bright pink glucose liquid. I think she actually quite likes it, but I can tell she is getting stronger by her initial resistance. Up till now she has been too weak to protest.

Today was the Grow Your Own group, hosted by some members down in Ramsey. I had arranged to visit a smallholding on the way with a view to it opening up for a summer smallholders meeting. I had also arranged to pick up a meat slicer which I had jumped on when it came up on Facebook. Three birds with one stone.

The smallholding I visited was delightful, even in the harsh weather. I was greeted by four very large, barking dogs. A few years ago I would have buckled and turned away, but I am now a dog lover (once I know they are definitely friendly). They no longer smell the fear in me.
Then it was time to meet the goats. I have not yet kept goats (note the 'yet') but I am always surprised by how friendly they are and how soft their coat is. I am co-ordinating a Goaty Day (nothing to do with funny little beards) for the Smallholders Club late in the year. Hopefully I will be able to resist their temptations. Seriously though, they are one of the trickier species of livestock to keep so I don't think we'll be getting one any time soon.
This is a shame, for I do fancy the idea of our own dairy products. A cow is out of the question and I am pretty sure the Shetland sheep would strongly object to being milked.

I stayed longer than I should have on the smallholding so was late leaving for the Grow Your Own group get together his wasn't helped by the total absence of mobile internet signal in Ramsey. Maybe I am too reliant on my smartphone.
Anyway, the meeting was most enjoyable as usual. We discussed perennial vegetables - ones that you just plant one year and reap the harvest for many more years. Asparagus, rhubarb, globe artichoke, Jerusalem artichoke to name a few. Oh that all vegetables were like this.
Everybody brings food along to these get-togethers. There is always way too much to eat and plenty of cake!

It was late afternoon when I returned to the farm. Time to give Ewe 0004 her last dose of glucose and to hand feed the wonky-necked Silkie hen. She is not yet showing any signs of improvement but we will persist for a while yet.
Her twisted neck causes her occasionally to completely lose her sense of orientation. It shouldn't be funny, but after feeding her, if you put her outside her little house facing away from it, as soon as you let go she quickly retracts backwards into the house. It is hilarious to watch. You have to have a sense of humour when things go wrong (paired with a strong sense of compassion).

An Early Spring Smallholding Week

What I love about working on the smallholding is the rich variety of jobs. So, by way of a bit of a catch up, here's a quick overview of a week here on Swallow Farm.

Thursday 15th February 2018
I started the day by jointing the ducks I recently dispatched and plucked - I am getting better and better at getting all the meat off the bone, which is great as I hate to waste anything when it is an animal's life we are talking about.
Hazel Coppicing
A trip to the vets for standard pet supplies hurt the wallet as usual, but we stopped off at a fellow smallholder's place on the way back to help coppice some hazel. Just one tree for this year but it gave us a fair haul of useable poles. They are a bit rustic but should be ok for what I have in mind, which is to make some hazel and willow hurdles. I had forgotten that the willow needs to be cut for a couple of weeks before it can be sufficiently bent without snapping, so that job has gone on the list.

I would normally cut all the growth at ground level, leaving sloped edges to shed water,

but the owner wanted this year's growth left - which made cutting a lot, lot trickier.

Friday 16th February 2018

The large water butt (an IBC - Intermediate Bulk Container) has been working well as a reservoir from the gutter to the wildlife pond. But the best laid plans... today I just needed to move it about 4 feet to make room for something else.
Willow harvesting

The job went more smoothly than I imagined, so I got straight on with harvesting the remaining willows. For the moment they can lay in neat piles until they have weathered enough to use for hurdle making.

Let there be light in the polytunnel
With jobs falling thick and fast, I made hay while the sun shone and cleaned the polytunnel. I have bought a new long-handled squeegee and soft broom for this and all was going well until a small plastic protrusion went straight through the polytunnel plastic. Fortunately I had a couple of foot of repair tape left over. More has been ordered as this is one thing you want in stock on the rare occasions when it is needed.

The monster chicks foraging in the rhubarb bed.

The upturned bins are for forcing pink rhubarb.

Saturday 17th February 2018

Rhubarb forcing

Not much done today, though I did place a couple of plastic dustbins over two of my rhubarb crowns in the hope that I can get a small crop of forced rhubarb this year. We'll see how it goes.

Sunday 18th February 2018

Grow-Your-Own Motivation

A day spent with the Grow-Your-Own group. I have handed over the reins of this group as I have taken on being Chair of the Smallholders Club and that is taking up quite enough of my time.

Our subject for the day was succession planting and we had a very informative discussion. I showed off my seed organisation system, which I can't show you as it is patent pending (actually it's not, but it should be).

More importantly we enjoyed a high quality bring and share meal. Then there was more club business. Four of the Grow-Your-Own group are now committee members of the Fenland Smallholders Club and we informed the others that the group had volunteered to organise the April club meeting. As this would be the first I had been in charge of as Chair, I want to make it a good one.

Lots of ideas flew about and I think we will put on quite a show.

I always come back from the Grow-our-Own group feeling inspired and reinvigorated.

Monday 19th February

Early Crops

Finally the polytunnel is ready for me to start planting. (I discovered that the old soft broom head fitted the new gubbins I've bought, making for the perfect polytunnel cleaning set up).

In went ten Arran Pilot seed potatoes for a super early crop of new potatoes. I sowed carrots, beetroots, turnips and lettuce too. The polytunnel is great for squeezing an extra crop in before anything is possible in the unprotected beds outside.

Turkeys not just for Christmas

I managed to catch and dispatch the superfluous male turkey - important to do this while I could still tell it from the older stag.

I got it all plucked too while it was still warm. I find turkeys the easiest of all poultry to pluck.

Primocane Raspberries

With these jobs done before lunch, I continued on to cutting back the stems of my autumn fruiting raspberries. It is amazing that from nothing new stems will shoot up, flower and fruit all before winter comes round again.

These are my new raspberries, one called Joan J which gets rave reviews from everyone and one called All Gold (though it doesn't produce chocolate raspberries and they're not Terry's!)

Another Re-organisation

With drizzle coming down all day, I was by now getting pretty damp. The water table is high which means that any rain makes the soil unworkable and things churn up pretty quickly. So I continued the day reorganising the stables. I have made some room in there and want to make good use of the space. It is amazing how every space I create seems to fill up with 'stuff', hence the endless reorganisations.

And finally, despite the weather forecast for the coming week, there are more definite signs of spring. Here's a photo of some catkins I took today.

Bring On The Winter!

Sunday 4th February 2018
I am a Chair!
After putting the finishing touches to the fedge, it was off to Upwell Village Hall for the Fenland Smallholders Club Annual General Meeting.
I came back as the new Chair, not entirely unexpected but not official until properly nominated and elected at the meeting.
I have big plans for the club so it should keep me busy enough. I am very excited at the prospect at taking the club forwards into the twenty-first century!!! 😉

For a while now the committee has had a number of spare places which means that the burden of organising events falls on fewer shoulders. So I was absolutely thrilled that quite out of the blue one after another after another put themselves forward until all twelve committee positions were full.

I went into Monday and Tuesday really buoyed up.

Monday 5th February
Wrapping Up
I think I have finally adapted to winter. Having worked outside all day in the drizzle on Saturday, I worked outside all day in temperatures close to freezing with occasional flurries of snow.
I didn't even feel cold. The secret is to wear layers and to work hard. I have just discovered Aldi Special Buy fishing gear too. Does the job perfectly.

With the clear, cold weather come some stunning sunsets. I often see them as I'm walking the dogs along the river. We have to cut back across the fields and often end up crossing the dyke to get back onto our land after the sun has gone down.

Tuesday 6th February
The Gardening Gang
With temperatures still below zero I decided to heave out the rotavator and start working the bed where the broad beans will be planted. I thought I had covered this bed with cardboard, but was disappointed to find it was one which had become overrun with nasturtiums last year. The dead stems still trailed over the surface. These would need picking off, icy as they were, otherwise they just twine around the blades of the rotavator.
There were a few nettles that needed digging out too. As I sunk the fork into the ground, it clearly wasn't hard enough under the surface to be rotavated. It would just cling to the tines and coagulate to clog up the machine.
Instead I decided to do some good old fashioned digging. There were areas of couch grass too and the roots needed excavating and pulling. A rotavator would have just propagated them.
I had a bunch of willing helpers today - chickens, ducks and guinea fowl. I let them out of their pen as I would be in attendance so they were very unlikely to come into contact with any wild birds.

They appreciated the extra protein as they pecked at anything that moved as I turned the soil. Hopefully I exposed all the slug eggs and nasty bugs, though they are not fussy about who they eat. Goodies like worms and ground beetles go down well too. Of course, as they eat, they scratch and break up the soil and they fertilise as they go.

I discovered a few Romanesco cauliflowers which I had missed. The frost had got to some of them, but there was enough to salvage. These are certainly hardier and easier to grow than conventional cauliflowers. Some went to make cauliflower rice along with some pheasant curry, the rest went into the freezer.

With a whole day's hard work under the belt, I decided to take the dogs on a good long walk before dark. We crossed the fields from the back of the land, along the river and then along the road where we virtually never meet traffic or people. Boris and Arthur just love running along this road.

Coming up in next post: ELVIS LIVES (but a successor has been appointed)

A Sheep on the Loose (or The Boar who Sat Down)

Friday 19th January 2018
Sheep On The Loose
"JOHN! JOHN!"
Sue's voice woke me up sharply. It had a sense of urgency. Thoughts started to go through my mind of what might be wrong. "One of the sheep is on the drive".

I threw on some clothes and rushed downstairs, still bleary-eyed and trying to get my bearings. Sure enough there was the brown wether lamb confusedly wandering around on the gravel. Panic over. It wouldn't be difficult to drive it round to the other gate where we could let it back in with the others.
With this done I investigated how it had gotten out. The three strands of electric fence were pulled and snapped and the rickety stock fence was pushed aside. The lamb had obviously been trying to reach some out of bounds willow and I guess had got its horns caught in the electric fence. This would have given the poor thing quite a shock and it had obviously blundered its way through the fence and onto the drive. Fortunately the others had not followed.

I had to go to work, but the fence needed mending first. It was just a question of fixing the wire using small metal connectors, but the icy air made this job considerably more tricky than it could have been.

Saturday 20th January 2018
PE One Two Zero launched
Lots of preparation to do to be ready for tonight's meeting, but before all that I had a couple of pigs to pick up. Unfortunately they won't be ending up in my freezer, for they belong to friends of mine. I just pick them up in the trailer and drop them off at the abattoir early in the morning. Although Steve hadn't fed the pigs all day (the standard way to get them to do what you want), they refused to follow a bucket of food up the ramp of the trailer. They got to the bottom of it and then stopped. The boar sat down! After a couple of minutes the young sow decided to take advantage of the food up in the trailer but the boar resisted all efforts to coax him forwards so we decided to gently nudge him in the right direction. But you cannot hurry pigs. They have a sixth sense and their stubbornness automatically kicks in.
In truth, it didn't take too long and experience had taught us to channel the pigs and not give them the option of backtracking, so there was no chasing around in the mud.
I tried the tickling technique but the boar stayed firmly plonked on his bum.
So I informed Steve of the wheelbarrow technique (use your imagination, it speaks for itself). He was dubious that this could work but I assured him I had done it before.
We gave it a few more minutes but there was no change in the situation, so Steve lifted the boar up by the back legs and we both bundled it forwards. Basically the pig goes into forward freefall, a little like the principle of a spacecraft staying in orbit.
Success. We quickly closed the back gate of the trailer just in case the boar decided to reverse and that was it. Job done.

We threw in plenty of straw, for tonight was going to be icy.
When I got home the pigs buried themselves under the straw and went to sleep. Little did they suspect what was in store for them.

PE One Two Zero
At 7pm we were expecting up to 20 people to arrive. I have started a new local group of smallholders and this was to be our first get together. There was no agenda, just to get to know each other, share some good homemade food and good company.

In the end we had sixteen people which was a great turnout. We are all in the Fenland Smallholders Club, but most never go along to the monthly meetings down in Upwell. I figured that if we kept it local people might be more likely to take the time out. More importantly, we could hold the get together in the evening, outside those precious daylight hours when we need to be outside working on our smallholdings. With no-one travelling more than 5 miles on familiar country lanes, there would be no worries about driving in the dark or arriving home too late.

Some of the people I already knew quite well but some I had never even met. It was great to be able to find out more about each other in a relaxed atmosphere. I hope that a good time was had by everybody and that they all come back next time, which will be in about three months.

Sunday 21st January 2018
Snow!
An early start to take the pigs to the abattoir. The drop off went quite smoothly, although the boar sat down again. In the end we had one pulling him from the front and me lifting him from the back - this is easier said than done when you are jammed inside a 4 foot high trailer with two pigs which could quite well squash you!
I had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, for there was a possibility of snow arriving about 8 in the morning. For the second time in a week the BBC got it disastrously wrong. After failing to mention the mini hurricane that swept through midweek, they now had no mention of snow for this area on their website. Shortly after 8.30 we had a couple of very light flurries, but about an hour later it started coming down with more determination. An icy surface meant that the snow settled quickly.

I spent an hour or so wheel barrowing the straw from the trailer down to the turkey pen to keep the ground from getting too muddy. I resembled a snowman by the end. I retreated into the warm farmhouse, only to discover that the rest of the family had gone back to bed!!!

The snow continued into the early afternoon, leaving us with a covering of about an inch of the white stuff. Nothing compared to further north, but snow is pretty rare here.
I no longer feel the urge to run outside and play in it. In fact I didn't even venture out to take a photo for you. Instead I decided to start my seed audit for the year, digging out my trays of seeds from last year to see what I can get away with not buying this year.

I sat in the conservatory so I could watch the snow falling from a  position of comfort, sipping a nice hot cup of coffee and occasionally glancing up at the garden birds flocking to the feeders. There is still something quite magical about snow. I could just watch it falling for hours.

A Marrow Victory

That's mine, front centre, next to that very long courgette!

Under the umbrella of the Fenland Smallholders Club I run a Grow Your Own group. We meet up most months, taking turns to visit each others' smallholdings and all taking food along to share.

Each year we have a growing competition too and this year it had been decided we would have a go at marrows. This is not a vegetable I usually grow, instead tending to let my courgettes grow into false marrows before feeding them to the chickens - the Ixworth chicks have taken to making tunnels out of them.
I perused the seed catalogues over winter and opted for Long Green Marrow. I treated my seeds as if they were courgettes, but lost a couple of the plants along the way. In the end just two marrow plants survived and along with the courgettes I pretty much forgot about them until a couple of weeks ago when I happened to notice a rather fine specimen poking its head out from beneath the leaves.

Loading the marrow onto the car roof 😉

I turned up at the group today armed with my marrow and a tub of raspberry sorbet as the theme of the day was soft fruits. We always enjoy a bit of banter when it comes to the growing competition and last year it has to be said that I wapped everybody with my giant pumpkin, so I had a reputation to uphold.

Surely a courgette!

Steve's 'marrow' was already on display and it was certainly well endowed lengthwise, though a little lacking in the girth department. It also bore a striking resemblance to an oversized courgette! CONTROVERSIAL!

It then became clear that we hadn't actually decided the criteria by which the marrows were to be judged. We eventually went for weight and the weigh in was stressful with the first two coming in at just over 5kg. Mine was up next and I was overjoyed to hear that it came in at over 6kg. The rest of the marrows were clearly smaller, though a couple were very good lookers.

The prize? Gloating rights for the rest of the year.




The raspberry sorbet went down well too and was particularly well paired with a chocolate cake which somebody else had brought along.

An Inspirational Smallholding

During the summer months the Fenland Smallholders Club meets once a month at members' smallholdings. It is a great chance to see what others are up to and to glean ideas. In fact I often return from these get-togethers with my brain buzzing with concepts for future projects.

But the July meet was something very special. We visited the most charming and inspiring smallholding I have ever been too. It wasn't set on a big piece of land, but over 25 years the owners have created a true home from home, indoors and outdoors merging brilliantly, a whole treasure trove of areas and projects. There was everything from hydroponics to a yurt. And along the way a green-woodworking space complete with outdoor pole-lathe, a hog-roast pit, charcoal making, an outdoor wood-fired hot tub, a compost loo, chickens, ducks, bees, skeps, a pottery room, wool spinning and crafts, goats and more...

Most important though was the warmth and enthusiasm of our hosts, Belinda and Colin.

Here are some pictures. Needless to say, Sue and I returned to the smallholding newly inspired to push forward with fresh projects.

Indoors and outdoors merging perfectly

Green woodworking area - I want one!

Hot tub with a difference

Skeps

The second best use for a bath I can think of - first is the hot tub

An easily cobbled together hog roast pit

The goats had a great playground

Two proud and happy smallholders

Time for coffee and a cake (or two)

The big charcoal reveal

Wonderful stuff

Who needs a house when you've got a yurt?

Wool Day

There's been a bit of a sheepy theme lately - understandable as it's lambing time - so I'll carry on with it.
A bit out of order here, for the week's new lamb took priority, but last Sunday saw us at the Fenland Smallholders Club Wool Day.

Club members demonstrated wool crafts including needle felting (kept Sue quiet) and peg looming. I list these two as they are the ones where something recognisable can be achieved with the least skill level!

Our peg looming did not progress much

over winter, but Gerry has become impatient

waiting. At least he seems to have already

given it his seal of approval.

What fascinated me though was the demonstration of natural wool dyeing. I had no idea that by using different fixing chemicals (known as mordants) you can get different shades from the same plants.
Dyeing the wool was a surprisingly quick and easy process and the natural dyes give such wonderful colours.

I am now formulating plans for a dyer's garden!

Meanwhile, back on the farm, our new lamb has discovered its very own sheepskin rug on which to keep warm!