Without bread all is misery...

So said William Cobbett: pamphleteer, farmer and parliamentary representative for Oldham in the early part of the 19th century. However, if he had popped round here a couple of months ago he would have changed his tune pretty sharpish: 'with this bread, all is misery'. I had a go at making sourdough bread after reading plenty about how wonderful it is. I remain unconvinced.  While the starter worked fine and the actual 'dough' seemed to do ok, the end result was disappointing. Brick-like and tasteless. It wasn't helped by the fact I forgot to add salt to the flour and tried to hide this mistake by serving the bread with salt on top.

So I have gone back to 'regular' bread. I'm now at the stage where I can make a few loaves a week without too much faffing or swearing, and they can be frozen until needed. We both take 'bagging' to our day jobs and a few slices always comes in useful. Usually the chore needs to be done when the heating is on so the dough will rise but now it is getting a bit warmer during the day it seems to come up with no problem.

On a visit to Buxton in February we found a shop that sold the old type of bread tin, not the fancy non-stick ones, and I have two of those for 1lb loaves, plus a 1lb non-stick one bought in an emergency. The 3lb of flour plus yeast and water makes three loaves as well as between 8-12 small buns. As I get more confident I am slowly experimenting with things like rye and spelt flours, wholewheat flakes, herbs and sunflowers seeds. Not all of the results are brilliant, but they are all edible and by my own hand. That's worth a lot to me.

Dla Ewka

We're always thinking of you.

The bee-loud glade...

After several weeks of cold but dry weather, with plenty of very welcome sunshine, I manage to pick the day when it rains to do my first hive inspection of the year. Thankfully the sun came out so it wasn't too bad but there were some worrying signs inside both hives.

Firstly, the bees were alive and in both hives there were plenty of them. There was brood (not much but it's early yet) although I didn't see the either of our two queens, and the bees seem ok. On the down side, there was some light mould on the crown board and a couple of cells looked like they had chilled brood. Unfortunately it isn't possible for me to use a camera and check the frames so I had to rely on memory to check the problem.

For me, the most worrying thing was the amount of dead bees on the varroa mesh. There seemed an awful lot. This may have caused the poor circulation of air in the hive, as they were thick on the floor. I brushed them all out and, while one or two weren't dead, they didn't look very well. There wasn't, as far as I could see, a queen among them, so fingers crossed.

Supple as a young goat on a windy hill...

I have recently had a small operation to remove a ganglion from my right wrist and have been at home for the past couple of weeks recuperating. This has mainly consisted of reading all those books I bought from charity shops and never got around to. Some have been delight but others, why did I spend 50p on them? At least now the pile to be recycled is bigger and there's some room on the shelves for more...

Although I have been restricted in my movements somewhat, I was determined not to miss out on the basic goat keeping course we have been booked on since before Christmas. This was a week and a half after the op and I was able to drive down to Reaseheath with little pain. The day itself was great, even Agnieszka liked it, particularly when we got taken to a real goat farm where they breed various animals for their meat.

If I have one complaint about Reaseheath it's their habit of putting people into classes when they know nothing about the subject. Last time it was Mr 'I-like-to-keep-things-informal' Walton and his poor knowledge of poultry; this time it was Alan the sheep and dairy farmer. This was only an introduction, so I can forgive the lack of experience here, but for more indepth courses he would have been hopeless. He did, however, have lots of experience with cattle and sheep and came alive when he found he could transfer what he knew. You could see on the farm visit that he was relaxed around the animals, far more than in the class.

Anyway, Alan told us some excellent things, not all in the way he should. Goats, he said, had 'distinct similarities', some of which you can see in the photos. When asked about milk, he replied. 'lactation is a calendar year in terms of its lactation'. When talking about the buck, the PowerPoint slide just said 'urinating', referring to the unsavoury habit of male goats urinating on their front legs. Alan looked at that and said simply: 'There'll be lots of weeing' and then went on to explain how the smell of the buck is what attracts the doe. Now, call me old-fashioned, but if I was a girl and a large, hairy goat, reeking of its own piss, came up to me, the last thing I would be doing is turning around and thinking of England. Surely it's the smell of the doe that attracts the buck, not the other way around? I wait with interest for any response...

All in all we had a good day, learnt quite a lot and I was surprised at Agnieszka, who went there ambivalent about any animal, except maybe rats and Jack Russell terriers, but came away smiling broadly and asking me when we could get some goats. Soon, I hope.