First of the year...

A strange year so far, with the long hot May and then the damp and chilly June. Then today, again, we're at boiling point after planting out leeks in the rain yesterday. Haven't been to my parents' plot for a couple of weeks, due to Todmorden Show, so the spinach was a bit of a mess when I got there this week. Stripped a lot of it to tidy it up and picked a few other bits and bobs. That gave us our first home grown meal of the year:

New Charlotte potatoes, mange tout, calabrese and a slice of home-made cheese on top. You can't get better than that!

Bread and cheese...

There is a glut of milk from the goats at the moment. Two of them are filling the bucket to (almost) over-flowing, while the others give at least 4kg a session. That's only half of their daily offering but I am not there in the evenings and can only imagine how much there is every day. The plus point is I have been able to get my hands on plenty of raw milk and have the chance to experiment a little, with a bit of cheese-making.

The first one I made ended up too salty, thanks to faulty scales. But this one looks to be much better. Semi-hard and very creamy, it is perfect for spreading on the bread. 

The purchase of a new book on bread-making has given me some further tips and suggestions and I tried using some of them last night. I am not sure the table will be up to vigorous kneading as it did make a few creaky noises.

Images of Spring...

 

How not to hive a swarm...

For the second time since I started keeping bees, I had a swarm. I got the phone call at 5.30 one night and later we went over to see what they were up to. Not a lot as it happens; they were sat on a post, as quiet as could be.

So I scraped them into a carboard box, propped open one corner with a stick and left them to it.

The next afternoon I went to house them in a proper hive, collected the box:

But they had other ideas, as you can see. After buzzing around the plots in a cloud for what seemed like ages, they finally settled on the same post they were on originally.

So I waited until the evening, then went back. This time they were clustered more on the fence than the post. I got what I could off the post / fence, scraping and brushing them into the box before transferring them into the new hive.  

Another day later, back again. This time there was no sign of them on the post, and unfortunately no bees in the box. I obviously didn't get the queen. Thankfully, the hive they came from has a queen cell, so all is not yet lost. Another lesson learned, some more experience to add to that already gained.

The daggy end of the stick...

It was a glorious morning this Sunday, the motorway was full of people off to clog the highways and byeways of the Lake District, and arriving at the farm at 7.30 is lovely. Quiet apart from the song of birds, the occasional passing car, the bleat of sheep or goats. The sun shone and it was so pleasant to walk through the fields, marvelling at the wood anemones, pausing to pick some wild garlic / ramsom leaves. They made lovely soup the day after and are excellent mixed with mayonnaise and used as a dressing for potatoes.

I put the collected leaves in a bucket and was in a world of my own when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Fozzie charging down the field at me. Naturally, I shit a brick, as you would when a 100kg ram is making straight for you. Thankfully it wasn't me he was after, but to see if there was anything in the bucket. One sniff of the ramsoms and he was off again, uninterested. I was much more alert after that.

After milking we put the Dorpers through the foot bath, something that we now do every week (when they don't undo the gate and let themselves out as they did this week) and it seems to be keeping their feet nice and healthy. Then we rounded up some of the ewes running with the ram. They were due for fluke drenching and, while we had them in the shed, we crutched a couple of dirty ones.

Crutching, dagging, call it what you will, it is one of the dirtiest jobs I've done so far. Basically, dagging is removing the dangleberries from a sheep's rear end, the accumulated dung that, due to scour or illness, sticks, like the proverbial to a blanket, and has to be cut off. Now, I am all for learning new skills and techniques and if I want sheep I have to do this, so I didn't complain when I was given the dagging shears and told to get on with it. But what a job. Thick, black lumps of dried muck stuck to the fleece. Cutting it out was a slow process, but essential if the sheep isn't to be the target of flies which, attracted by the smell, lay eggs and then on hatching, the maggots burrow into the wool and skin of the animal.

So could it get worse? Hacking at dried cack? Well it got worse when the largest lump turned out to be warm and slimy on one side; it got worse when the ewe decided the shears were too close to her bum and started flicking her tail; and it got, finally, worse, when she decided that now would be a good time to add further dung to the stuff already there. Textbook.

Ten minutes of cutting and trimming, though, did the job and she must have been relieved to get rid of the extra weight. Too much information?   

 Later that afternoon we went to do my favourite job of the year: planting the potatoes. This year we have earlies Annabelle, and maincrop Sante. I think Sante are what we had last year, but a memory lapse and poor bag marking means I don't actually know what we've almost finished eating. I'll be better this year, I made a note in my book.

All change in the shippon...

Ever since I started working with Jane up at the farm, I have been milking the same two goats: Anna and Ava. So a couple of weeks ago, when I was told they'd be going soon, I didn't really think much of it and assumed I had misheard. But last weekend, I arrived to find a little van and trailer parked where I normally do and a flurry of activity in the yard.

I was able to milk the two of them as usual but, after milking, the trailer was got ready and the goats loaded into it for their long trip up to Arran, where they'll have a new home.

I have got quite attached to the two of them, Anna (above), who stands still while she has something in her bucket to eat, and turns to sniff my ear while I am milking her; Ava (below), who has long teats that make it easy for me to milk, but who had a habit of kicking if she thought she could get away with it.  

In recent weeks Ava got a bit of 'spring fever' and, instead of wandering back into her pen after milking, would dart outside and trot around the yard. It's hard to run after a goat when you're carrying a bucket full of milk, as I found out.

Next week there'll be some new tenants in the pens, as the goatlings will move into the shippon, leaving a pen free for all the new kids. It's an interesting game of solitaire, and one that keeps me busy.

Rocznica...

One of yesterday's jobs was planting some wild daffodils on the bank in the hope they will naturalise and, in years to come, give a wonderful display. Wild daffodils are very delicate and pretty, with small flower heads. It made me think of you, Ewa, particularly yesterday. I still think of you every day and wonder what you would be like now. Sleep well.

Ready for lambing...

Sunday we divided the Dorset flock into those due to lamb, those not due until May, and those to run with the ram in order to get them in-lamb for September.

The beauty of Dorsets is they come into season all year round and it is possible to have lambs two or three times a year.  

The other good thing is I get to experience lambing three times in one year, at a lesiurely pace, than having to cram it all in over two or three weeks.

Livestock and deadstock...

Sunday mornings are important to me, a chance for me to learn, to put into practice what I have read in the week, to try out techniques and to get closer to the animals I want to, eventually, manage and breed. This Sunday was a sombre affair, however, as one of the milkers, Zia, had failed to birth the third of triplets. This resulted in septacaemia and, ultimately, she died. Her orphaned kids stand in the pen looking a bit lost, as if every time the gate opens it will be their mum. In the pen next door, Sybil, the one who always held milk back when I tried to milk her, also lost two kids. Perhaps an infection affected them both.

On a happier note, Elka had triplets (above) and all was well and one of the goatlings in the other shed had twins. So that's eleven new goats in the space of a week, with two more to kid. Then it will be the turn of the Dorpers and a few more Dorsets.

I was full of a cold so clipping the feet of the Dorpers took ages and I don't think I was her best buddy for taking so long. I'll have to buck my ideas up next week!

In a quiet few minutes at work, I had a bit of inspiration, and came up with this:

She leaves her golden bed
Of straw to stand
Obediant, expectant,
Over a silver pail.
Silence, save for munching,
A snicker, a belly rumble.

I lean my head
Into her side,
The rumen gurgles
Like the promise
Of a distant storm
But outside, all is silent.

Spring has sprung...

... the grass is ris,
I wonder where,
the birdies is.

There are plenty of birds around, they have been flexing their song muscles for several weeks. I stood at the back door last night and, mixed in among the screams of children, the revving of over-tuned cars and the distant sirens, listened to a blackbird filling the air with his liquid song. It is a sound I always get pleasure from, particularly in the urban mess that is Farnworth.

It's not just the birds gearing up for spring. Yesterday, when I got to the farm there were three new additions. Mum Zina was looking very pleased with herself, despite needing a hand to get the first kid, a breech presentation, out. These were born on Friday and are already jumping about, itching to get in and play with the other goats.

More are due this weekend, so I am hoping it happens near enough to Sunday for me to be present.

With the weather so bright and sunny, I also decided to have a quick look in the hives. Both colonies are doing well, although one has used up almost all of its winter stores. I took two of their empty frames out and swapped them for two full ones from the other hive but will need to pop back this week and give them some sugar syrup to keep them going. If the weather is good, they might not need it, but better to be safe than sorry. I have been quite good so far at keeping them going through the winter and I would hate a basic mistake like not feeding them interrupt my success.

Although the sun was out, it must have been warmer on my head than in the air, as you can see.

Extracting in the comfort of the Dower House...

One of the problems of a cold house is that honey doesn’t flow once summer is over. As extraction time is generally in the autumn it means I either have to be quick or leave the supers on the hive until spring. This year I was late taking the supers off and ended up with them in the house. A problem with my manual extractor meant it was taking half an hour to extract four frames and even then a fair bit of honey was still in the cells. It seems the basket needs to be lifted slightly so the cogs connect but until I can get it taken apart and checked, I have had to stop extracting.

Record breaking cold weather in December didn’t help either, so the honey has sat in the front room since it came off the hive. Thankfully, as a member of Manchester & District Beekeepers Association I have access to a pretty good set of equipment in a good-sized, purpose-built room in Heaton Park. They have everything there: a warming room, uncapping tank, electric extractor, various filters, and big sinks. So last week we popped down and left our four remaining supers in the warming room so when we went back this week they’d be easier to extract.

Two hours sounds like plenty of time but when you have to cut the cappings off each frame, a total of twenty, then load the extractor, spin for ten minutes, empty and repeat, then time disappears. Cleaning everything afterwards took over an hour so we were over time by the time we’d finished. But it was worth the sweating to get it all done. Due to a memory lapse, where I didn’t record how much was extracted from the first super of the year, the official amount of honey we recorded from last year is probably a few pounds lower than the actual amount, but at 170lbs (that’s 78kgs in new money) I think that’s not a bad season’s harvest for only two hives.

I am glad now I bought a gross and a half of jars, so at least we have somewhere to put it. All I have to do now is jar it up before it sets, otherwise we’ll be eating it out of a bucket.

Brotformen...

For some time now I have been baking my own bread, getting the fresh (free) supermarket yeast and doing a batch of half a dozen loaves. They don’t always come out as I had planned but the experience is good and the more I do it, the more I am producing similar loaves. But the perfect loaf is still a way off I think.

While we were down in Dorset we visited the Town Mill Bakery in Lyme Regis and I spoke to one of the people working there about bread. I can get the mix of flour right, but the seedy taste and chewy crust is still beyond me, and I wondered if they had any tips. She said they used proving baskets to give the loaf the shape, so for Christmas Agnieszka got me a couple to play with. They are made of cane and quite hard, and you line them with flour and allow the bread to rise in them before flopping it out onto a tray and baking it like that. My wife always manages to get me something really useful and wanted for my Christmas box, proof if any were needed that she’s the right one for me.

As for the bread, well it didn’t turn out too bad the first time. The crust could have been a little thicker, but our oven only goes up to 220 degrees, any more and the cupboards would go on fire. So I will keep on practicing and altering the flour mix, adding different seeds (this one is with linseeds which gives it a lovely nutty flavour), baking for longer, experimenting, learning.

Early beans look unlikely...

With all the snow and ice it hasn’t been possible to go to the plot for several weeks. The bees are usually alright over winter, so not too much to worry about but I do like to go and check everything is ok. So on Sunday, on the way to Hebden Bridge, we popped in to see if all was fine.

The bees were very quiet, a few dead ones by the entrance, but that wasn’t surprising as it has turned chilly again and they keep inside when it’s like that. The big disaster, though, is the broad beans that were sown in October, ready for an early spring harvest. They were the right variety, but it seems the snow has burnt them beyond saving as the stems were black up to where the snow had been, the top leaves looking sad and green against the brown of the soil.

Everything else seems to be doing ok, the onions and garlic spritting and starting to grow, which is encouraging. The Savoy cabbages are fine, but the kohl rabi have flopped in the cold and will probably be dug in to boost the soil. The rye and clover is patchy but still alive and should put a spurt on when it warms up, more roughage for the soil.

Until it warms up there’s very little to do, so it’s back inside to peruse the seed catalogues and make some choices for the year ahead.

All is quiet on New Year's Day...

Well, maybe for the rest of the street it is, but not here. While everyone else was sleeping off a hangover, I was out drilling, sawing, cementing, bolting and nailing together my first shed. Made from remnants of the chicken run, some Freecycle cladding and some timber scrounged from my dad, and constructed over two days, all it needs now is a narrow door and then I can transfer the pile of bee boxes and plastic crates that have been cluttering up the front room. Won't somebody other than me be pleased?

Cold cures and seasonal sniffles...

The week before Christmas saw Agnieszka take to her bed in what was an unprecedented bout of coughing, cold and fever. I have never seen her so ill and it's the first time she ever took sick days while here. I was lucky and have so far managed to avoid anything worse than a sniff and slightly clogged nose, which a hefty hot whiskey saw off.

I think one of the reasons I am staying healthy is the thought of having to take some of the myriad Polish 'cures' that are bandied about, usually from tesciowa. Below are two:

On the left, a chopped onion to which has been added sugar. Leave overnight, then drain off and drink the juice. I tried this one, more out of curiosity than anything and I can honestly say that sugary onion is not something I could get a taste for. The jar on the right contains the mother of all cures and has a potentcy far beyond it's ingredients. To make, crush ten cloves of garlic and put them in the jar with the juice of a lemon. Add cooled boiled water and leave for 24 hours to infuse. Drink a couple of teaspoonsful before bed. This one stinks, and so far I have resisted the urge to try it. Agnieszka has been taking it for the last few nights but it doesn't seem to be shifting the cough.

Here she is, all bundled up trying to keep warm in our draughty and damp house. No wonder we get ill.

The praties are dug and the frost is all over...

One side of the potato-pit was white with frost -
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!

Sunday mornings these days are spent trying to perfect the art of milking. It's a nice thing to try and learn and I do feel I am getting somewhere. Most of the milk now goes in the bucket, rather than up my sleeve, on the floor or across my trousers, and the goats seem happier that I am getting faster. I find my biggest problems are with the goats with the smaller teats, getting the grip just right is difficult if I am not to spray milk into my hand. But, as they say, practice makes you better.

This Sunday, following a week of snowy and icy weather, as well as milking the goats we attended to the feet of the rams. It took three of us to turn them over and hold them, they wriggle and squirm worse than the ewes, and Dorset sheep aren't small. The Dorpers were fairly placid, although one started a fit of coughing when we righted him and I was concerned he might keel over at one stage, but he calmed down and then just got in the way.

The farm itself is in the middle of fields, as farms usually are, and on these crisp frosty mornings the views are stunningly beautiful. As the sun rises it glows, orange, low in the morning sky, making the ice on the grass twinkle and sparkle, like a sprinkling of glitter over everything. As I was carrying hay into one of the barns for the calves, I looked over the fence into the big field. The grass was white, the trees in the distance covered with hoar frost, and on the left, a red poll cow stood, a beautiful dark red, unmoving, a stark contrast to the rest of the icy scene. It would have made a lovely photo...

Hands-on experience...

For the last few years I have tried, with my New Year’s resolutions, to either learn something new or do something positive. Wanting to learn new things means that, often, I succeed in my objective. That’s not to say that doing them is always easy, that would be a bit pointless, but the will to do something is a great way of helping things along. Learning to knit was one small success, improving my spoken Polish wasn’t.

During the summer, at Halifax Agricultural Show, we were talking to someone in the goat tent, asking lots of questions about goats and their upkeep. One of the questions she asked us was: can you hand milk? We both had to say no, and were then advised to learn. Asking around, we found somewhere not too distant and where they were willing to let us loose on the small, but productive herd of Toggenburg milkers.

So it was 7.30am on a Sunday morning when we arrived at Charnock’s Farm and were immediately given a stainless steel bucket, a ten second ‘how to’ and let loose on one of the goats. They were so patient, and over the weeks we’ve been doing it, we have got better and quicker, although there are still a couple of the six goats we milk that think kicking the bucket over or standing in it, is better than let us work away at their teats. It’s been an interesting few weeks and I hope we can become more proficient before the goats dry up naturally later in the winter.

I also get to work with the small flock of Polled Dorset sheep; rounding them up, tagging the lambs, inoculating and general management. It’s a steep learning curve, but a real bonus. It’s just a shame that, with all hands full, we don’t get to take many photos. I am also pleasantly surprised that Agnieszka still gets up, at 6am on a Sunday, to come with me and we learn together. I knew she was special, but now I know she is extra-special.

Quitte, quince and pigwa...

Some years ago, in Germany, I was given a very strange dessert. They called it ‘Quitte’ and said they were very hard fruits that you had to boil for a week before they were soft enough to eat. I suspected at the time, and later confirmed, that they were quince and in recent months there has been a plethora of articles, both written and on television, about these sadly neglected fruits.

On the way down to Dorset, we stopped at an orchard and bought a few pounds. They sat in the cottage for the week and every time we went past we sniffed them as the aroma is gorgeous. On the way back home, we bought some more and then a week or so ago, we were given a huge bucket of them for nothing. So far they’ve been made into jelly and cheese (like a thin Turkish delight, but sweeter), a quince and apple cake, an experimental liqueur, and a quince and apple crumble. They are absolutely wonderful. We still have some left and plans are now to add some rosemary from the yard to make them into a savoury jam.

If anyone has any other ideas of what to do with them, let me know, but they are disappearing fast!

Down in deepest Dorset...

There come times during the year where you just feel so knackered that you feel like everything is getting on top of you, all the hills you have to climb seem insurmountable and the crappy bits seems to be happening more often than the good bits. Colds, headaches, general feelings of malaise, all contribute and wear you down. This happened to us this year and we decided that we needed a week away from home (two weeks would have been better but neither of us has the holidays left), somewhere quiet, out of the way and in the country. Somewhere we could do very little except sleep, eat and chillax. So after some searching, and shouts of ‘how much!’, we settled on a week in a thatched cottage in Burton Bradstock.

It was just what the doctor ordered. Plenty of walks, good food, lots of sleep in the darkest place I have been in a long time, time on the beach and hardly any of it using the car. We used the local buses to get along the coast before walking back along the cliffs, or just wandered out. We went to West Bay for ginger and honey ice cream (and later some fantastic fish and chips), Bridport for the market and smoked mackerel, Lyme Regis for amazing bread, Dorchester for a disappointing detour, the Cerne Abbas giant to marvel at his manhood, Chesil Beach to get windswept, and Beaminster to say ‘good morning’ to just about everyone there.

It was a tonic. No wonder people who live down there live longer than anywhere else in the country. Not only is it a beautiful landscape, rolling hills and warm golden buildings, the people are actual quite nice. At least they will talk to you, not like Farnworth where the first thing most people say is unprintable.

On both outward and return journeys, we stopped at Charlton Orchards in Somerset to stock up on strange varieties of apples: Red Pippen, Orleans Reinette, Kidd’s Orange. We decided not to go for the medlars after I asked what they were like and the bloke compared them to ‘uncooked cake mixture’.

It was lovely to spend time in a village in the country, but made us realise how much you need a car and how important a village shop is. In some ways we have it easy in the town but, as MC Escher said, ‘Simplicity and order are, if not the principal, then certainly the most important guidelines for human beings in general’. It’s that simplicity and order that appeals.

An apple a day...

... makes Granny Smith a very rich old lady.

I always knew the Piccolo Book of Jokes and Riddles would come in handy one day and I can't believe I only got one chance to tell it when we went to Erddig Hall at the weekend for their 20th apple festival.

We are both sick of the supermarkets and their crappy apples from South Africa, Portugal and Holland so when we found out about this festival on a previous visit to the National Trust property near Wrexham we were determined to visit. We weren't the only ones either, as the place was full at 10.30 on a Saturday morning and we all had to wait until precisely 11.00 before they opened the doors.

Erddig Hall is a lovely property, with an interesting house as well as nice gardens. The apples were set up in a tent away from the main house, and there were, according to the brochure, over 120 varieites available. There weren't that many on show or sale but the choice of what they had was amazing. Far too many to make an informed choice and there was no way we could take one of each. For a start we'd have forgotten the names before we were out of the marquee. So we um-ed and ah-ed and eventually bought a selection:

• Foxes delight - crisp and juicy
• Red devil - hard and crunchy 

Both from a farm shop set up in the slightly off-putting 'midden yard', along with some Buerre Hardy pears which were crisp and crunchy, not soft and gooey like so many of the crappy ones you get at Asda. Add to that a couple of bottles of pure apple juice (which is perfect with Żubrówka) and we were loaded down before we even got to the main attraction.

From the Erddig stocks we went a bit mad:

• Tower of Glamis - to cook with
• Lord Lambourne - a crisp, slightly tart, eating apple
• Rushmead's Kernel - a very tart apple that stores well. These have been wrapped and stored and will come out at Christmas as a special treat. Assuming, of course, they last that long.

We were disappointed that no quince were available, nor were there any damsons or plums. There was plenty of other entertainment, though, and I discovered the £3.50 I charge for a 1lb jar of honey fell far short of the £5 they were charging for pretty much the same thing. With mouths open, we wandered past a potter, basket maker and tree surgeon to end up watching the Border Morris Dancers, who were very good and very entertaining. The girls were very sedate, flicking their hankies and skipping around, but the boys, all blacked up in 'disguise' were a bit more raucous and obviously enjoyed themselves.