Monthly Archives: March 2015

It must be spring!

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We had a meeting today, and for once I didn’t mind.

Whilst staring intently at the chair and seeming worryingly attentive, I was able to keep an eye on the centre’s wren. It was carrying immense loads of garden rubbish in its bill. Once we finished, I had a look outside. There were leaves scattered around under the spot in the verandah roof where the wren roosts at night. Sure enough, if you a squint up at the beams you can just make out where it’s been stuffing leaves in a convenient gap. I’ll get a photo tomorrow, which will explain things better.

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Typical, we put up half a dozen nest boxes but the best nest of the season is going to be in an accidental gap.

I felt so good about it that I still don’t notice that the meeting was compiling a long list of jobs for me. I really must pay proper attention in future.

 

It never rains but it pours

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We have a big booking next month – tree planting, lunch for 40 and farm walk for a company that sponsors some of our new woodland. We have a new yoga group starting that evening. So it’s going to be busy.

Now we have someone wanting to rent the centre for a film show and talk, which might, as they point out, interest the yoga group. They have a guest coming who can only make it that evening…

To say I’m torn is an understatement. I don’t want to let anyone down. I would like to fit everything in. But most of all I would like to hide until it was all over.

We also have two days in the next month where we have two events on at the same time. It’s nice to be bringing money in to finance the centre but it always seems like four times the work to do double the events. It also makes me wonder what is so attractive about some days and so unattractive about others. Even in the middle of all this doubling and trebling up we still have seven days when nothing is booked.

All that and I have to get my nettle soup recipe ready for a school group on Friday…

Focus!

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One of the main things that came across from Tamara Hall’s presentation on Wednesday night was what you can do when you focus on something. She was given five years to live at one point, and she concentrated on doing a couple of things well.

Having examined my working habits, conscience and lack of success it’s a lesson I’m going to take on board: having examined my waistline and eating habits I’ve concluded that I may not even have five years!

It’s a short blog because I have things to accomplish…

Goats

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Finally, we have baby goats. It’s taken a while and we were beginning to worry about continuing lack of kids but last night one of the two pregnant does had twins. They are doing well and the mother is much more relaxed. The other pregnant doe still looks like a square piece of furniture and is sitting in a corner glowering at visitors.

Something I’ve never thought about before is the ability of goats to scowl, I’m not sure they have the facial dexterity to scowl, but then again, I’m not sure if faces can be dextrous. Or if scowling and glowering are that different. I just checked it up and see that a frown seems to be a large part of scowling though not mentioned in glowering. I then checked up some more and found that “scowl” is given as one definition of “glower”. All in all it’s probably better to stop now instead of rambling on. I don’t want to lose my audience and while people like baby animals most people couldn’t care less about the facial expressions of goats.

I’ve put in a photo of one of the other goats for the time being as I forgot my camera today and my phone is resisiting all attempts to make it disgorge the picture of mother and babies which I took.

Update: Here are some photos taken in what is ‘today’ to me as I write, but would have been ‘tomorrow’ when I originally wrote the post. Both terms are, of course, relative to an international readership. There are actually two kids but they wouldn’t cooperate by standing anywhere near each other – in contrast to lambs who tend to sit around next to each other at this age. Hopefully the other pregnant doe will have hers soon.

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The presentation last night was interesting in parts (by which I mean the parts where I’m going to steal the ideas!) and the sausages were excellent and really well cooked (even though I’m clearly biased on that last point. We served the chorizo and the lightly herbed ones with leek, as those were the ones we had most of. The lightly herbed ones are similar to the Newmarket sausage but when you have Lincolnshire sausages all over the place I don’t see any need for the Newmarket. Three Newmarket butchers and the EEC clearly disagree as it is a product with a protected geographical indication. Now that I’ve started reading about Newmarket sausages I’m going to have to go down to Newmarket and buy some. Fortunately, though I’ve just finished reading about cooking badger, I’m not feeling any compulsion to eat one myself. I don’t mind travelling for sausages but I’m not ready for roadkill just yet.

Sausages and speakers

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We have a speaker tonight at the Ecocentre – Tamara Hall, who, after a start in engineering and tailoring, runs Molesfarm Community Projects from her family farm.

On a more mundane level (which is generally where you will find me) I was thinking I needed to sort out the sausages (we will be offering refereshments tonight, and trying to sell sausages) when a man arrived brandishing money and asking for two packs of Nottinghamshire Sausages – one of our best sellers. By the time I’d finished digging to the bottom of the reserve freezer it became clear that he was going to be disappointed. However, he took two packs of the Plain Pork so that was good, and by the time I’d rearranged everything so I wouldn’t have to shift 120 packs of pork and apple burgers to get to the reserve stock next time, I’d done all the sorting I needed to do.

We’ve filled the new notice board ready for the meeting, cut back in the gardens, potted up cuttings, planted seeds and had more lambs. I’ve partly re-written the blurb for our second annual Scarecrow competition, sent some invoices, answered emails and drunk tea. Then I drank more tea. It’s good for you.

I’ll leave you with a picture – cade lambs under a heat lamp. Probably the strangest looking photo I’ve ever taken…

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Cyclists, sheriffs and various other visitors

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We had an unexpected group of toddlers arrive on Monday, which was a surprise. Farmer Rose had fixed that up for us on Sunday and forgotten to tell us. He is, after all, wrapped up in lambing.

That went OK, as they just wanted to see the lambs, and was followed on Tuesday by a group of cyclists from the University of the Third Age from nearby Bingham. Somebody had told them the cafe was now open all week. That’s not quite accurate, but I did open up for them because I’m a cheerful sort and because I will do all sorts of things for money. (One of those statements, by the way, is untrue. I will leave you to guess which.)

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We then had the Health and Wellbeing Ambassador for the High Sheriff of Nottingham come to visit. Or Sue, as we used to call her before her elevation to Ambassador status. It seems that she is not allowed to claim her house is sovereign territory or evade parking fines so, quite frankly, I’m not sure if she’s a proper Ambassador.

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Then, as I was loafing near the bird table with my camera, the first farm butterfly of the year settled on some crocuses near my feet. It looks a bit rough round the edges but it’s always good to see the first butterfly of the year, and let’s face it, I’m not fresh out of the box either.

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More lambs and visitors

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It was a busy day today, with people coming to see the lambs. We had about 30 people through, which isn’t bad when you consider the lack of advertising and the fact that we aren’t really a tourist destination.

I was a bit disheartened, on counting my surviving cuttings, to find that I don’t have many survivors. In the case of the periwinkle and cape gooseberry none have made it through the winter. In the case of the curry plant I have 100% survival. I only took them to see what would happen because, apart from smelling like curry, they are pretty useless. Even the mallow and buddleia have done badly, and they grow like weeds if you leave them alone. I’m beginning to suspect that I have the opposite of green fingers. I couldn’t have done worse if I’d replaced the rooting hormone with Agent Orange.

Things looked up a bit as we visited my dad in Peterborough with the first butterfly sighting of the year – a Small Tortoiseshell.

In the evening we took the longer way home and spotted a kite in a tree on top of the hill just before Elton, with it’s forked tail prominently displayed. There were two more wheeling over the edge of the village, and just before Corby, two more. One of the second pair obliged by formating on the car for a few moments – about ten feet away and a couple of feet above.

However, good as it was, it’s now time to start planning the 2015 cuttings campaign. An idiot, a knife and a pot of rooting compound…

…what could possibly go wrong?

Friday Feeling

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It’s Friday and that’s time for quiet reflection on the computer again – Level 3 catering this time as part of the soap opera that attends the running of the Saturday Cafe on the farm.

I’ve seen the lambs, I’ve had a word with B (though she may be Bea – I’ve never been sure) at Shipshape Arts, I’ve watched an empty bird table and I’ve fired off a couple of emails. I’ve also eaten lunch and doughnuts, done some proof-reading and wrestled with a spreadsheet that won’t save the work I do on it. Either I’m an idiot who can’t use Excel or the sender is an idiot who can’t use Excel. As I don’t usually have trouble entering a few details I’m coming to an inescapable conclusion about the sender, but don’t let me influence you…

I’m rapidly running out of excuses so I’ll load some pictures and try to put off the evil hour. Note the kestrel picture – we have someone making a nest box which we’re going to place in the statue, so fingers crossed we get some interest.

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Time to talk toilets

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We spend a lot of time here talking about toilets. and the correct way to use them. In fact, with three school groups in this week, each divided into two groups, we’ve talked about toilets three times and demonstrated six. They are plastic toilets at the centre, which always make it seem a bit like camping; they are variously known as separator, waterless or composting toilets.

The first two are true, as they do separate liquid from solids and they do not use water. I think that sums it up – it can be difficult to get the point across without dumbing down to nursery level, or making it sound like a Latin lesson. They don’t let me do it as my vocabulary tends to slip…

Composting? Not really. The liquids are piped away and used when we fill a barrel and the solids are removed in biodegradable bags on a regular basis and composted on a separate site. The products are composted but the toilet doesn’t actually do the composting.

The trouble we have is that we are in a village, and a village that isn’t 100% sure that they want us here. Adding to this uncertainty by adding piles of humanure to the landscape would be a step too far. I’m committed to using humanure after reading an eBook about it but I have to keep reminding myself that the author was living in an isolated house in the American woods.

The truth is that the humanure isn’t theonly important part of the process. We live on a small, densely populated island and lack space to store water: we can’t keep using drinking water to dispose of our waste. I can’t find figures for the UK but in USA toilet flushing accounts for 27% of water use. I have no reason to think we would be much different in our water wasting habits, particularly in view of the car washing habits of my neighbours, and when you think what people in Africa go through to get clean water this just seems wrong.

 

Worn out!

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We haven’t had a school visit for a while and I have become soft with inaction. After two groups baking pizza and discussing a range of subjects from why people eat guinea pigs, what to do with a dead ancient Egyptian, why Henry VIII didn’t eat chips and how yeast works, I’m feeling tuned up mentally and tired physically. Making pizza, trying to educate and standing with your back to four fan-assisted ovens can be a bit of a trial at times. It wasn’t so bad today because it has novelty value and because the day is quite cool.

Tomorrow and the day after, when temperatures are higher and the novelty has worn off, will be the real test.

The answers are (a) people eat gunea pigs because they are easy to raise and easily available in the Andes. (b) you cover him in a pile of salt (not “dump him in the sea” as one child suggested) to dry him out and inhibit microbial action (c) because he didn’t have potatoes – which is why the Romans didn’t have tomato on their equivalent of pizza and (d) they eat carbohydrates and produce carbon dioxide which is the gas that makes bread rise.

And yes, the proper teachers that accompany the groups spend a lot of time looking rolling their eyes when I get going.

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That’s all I can show you – due to modern restrictions I’m not able to show you happy flour-covered faces, so here are two tables instead. I’m going to be taking action to ensure I can take more lively pictures in future – watch this space!