Monthly Archives: May 2015

Scarecrows and free tea

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It’s been a scarecrow day today, with advice (and stockinette) from Shipshape Arts we’re going to be turning out some professional looking scarecrows this year.

All my ideas have been shelved on the grounds of good taste, though I still say that the 100th anniversary of the Great War and the presence of a barbed wire fence in the display area is a sign that we should push the boundaries a little. Julia says no. Bea from Shipshape says no and my sister, my own flesh and blood, agrees with them. Typical!

Otherwise things are a bit slow – we have promises of three more large and twenty or thirty spoon-size scarecrows, meaning we are currently down on large and slightly up on the small ones. Everybody seems to be so busy this year they don’t seem to be able to fit scarecrow-building into the plan.

That’s where my readers come in – I need your photo entries for the competition. If you have children, or nephews and nieces, or can persuade a teacher or youth group leader to submit a few it would be great.

Details are here. We had a meeting yesterday and I have confirmation that the winning school or group and the winning individual (or maybe more than one) will be able to adopt a tree in our new woodland. True, the “trees” are mere sticks at the moment, but they have potential. They come with full information about the tree and the farm so it can be quite educational. As you may have seen from earlier posts we are measuring trees regularly so if you win we will measure yours every year and tell you what size it is.

If you want to sidestep the competition process we can provide you with an adopted tree and a certificate for £20 – all proceeds going towards the cost of maintaining the woodland.

If yopu do win one, or if you pass over £20, I will even offer to make you a free cup of Lapsang Screveton if you visit, providing my tea bushes are still producing. If not you’ll have to put up with mint tea (freshly picked) or maybe PG Tips.

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Chocolate Mint

Seeds, salads and soil

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Having been seduced by exotic seeds and tempted by Twitter I’m now getting back to the straight and narrow. I’m going to grow salads and help my fellow man. If these salads can include bamboo shoots and the helping can be done via Twitter I will, of course, be a very happy man but if not, it’s back to basics.

This is why we started Quercus Community. It was meant to be about working in the open air, growing good food and making compost. Well, it wasn’t originally about compost but give a man access to garden waste and animal manure and there can only be one result.

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When I worked in the antiques trade simply breathing the air of an antique shop was enough to calm me down, in this new life I find that compost works the same magic.

Meanwhile, I have been suffering stress from both Twitter and the computer, one being fixed by the application of a sense of balance, and th eother being fixed by a pen knife. It’s probably best not to ask about that repair.

And yes, I did have to thing long and hard before selecting the three “s” words in the title…

 

 

Scarecrow Competition

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Open Farm Sunday is coming up and as part of the activity at the Ecocentre we are putting on a Scarecrow Competition.

More details are now available on the new Scarecrows page. We also have a new Scarecrow History page and a new Competition page.

There are classes for schools, youth groups and individuals, including groups and individuals with learning difficulties. You can either enter physically or send us in a photograph for the photo competition – so all of you in America and the Antipodes have no excuse for not nagging  children, friends and neighbouring teachers into participating.

Prizes will be as miserly as I can get away with, because that’s the sort of man I am, Prizes in the Spoon competition are likely to be better because Julia is organising them.

We already have one entry ready from Quercus Community, though there’s no point in us winning as we don’t want a free trip to the farm, we’re already here. If you look at it closely you may notice on other pages that the jockey’s head and arms are visible as parts of other scarecrows on last year. That accounts for the bloodstains you may have noticed…

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I’m not actually sure whether recycling old scarecrows is easier than building new ones but it is a satisfying way to go. Take Sid, for instance. He’s the one on the right in this picture. He’s been on a sponsored walk (though he actually rode on Dave’s wheelchair) and donated his head to several bodies over the last four years. The overalls on the other scarecrow have seen similar multiple use, though I’m not sure Sid has ever worn overalls. (Those of you thinking “That scarecrow on the left looks uncommonly like local farmer David Rose” are right by the way – we are no respecters of person once the building urge strikes).

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Progress, phythalis and pizza

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The weather is returning to spring after a short diversion back into winter and things are looking up.

Teachers seem to be springing into life too and we have quite a few bookings in the pipeline, though it’s never quite as simple as it should be, as they all think that we have unlimited days available at their convenience. Having already had to wave goodbye to one booking I don’t want to see any more disappear, particularly as they are all schools who haven’t visited before. We have a 95% rebooking rate so it’s important to get people down here, both for the experience and for the repeat business. I may be in a touchy-feely profession at the moment but it doesn’t mean I can ignore business reality.

Just checked my figures – it’s actually 94.4%. Better be accurate when there’s teachers about.

Even the Cape Gooseberry (which has so many other names) seeds have finally started to break through after a worryingly long germination. The three year old plants are coming back to life too, with a few flowers already showing.

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The kiwi berries are looking full of fruit after a three year wait so this year could be a really good year for odd fruit.

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I’m starting a proper cuttings diary after last year’s debacle. It was my own fault for not paying attention so simply keeping a diary should help by making me focus properly.

Finally, a picture of pizza. It’s like cats, people always seem to like pictures of cats and pizza. I’m working on getting the two together but in the meantime here’s a picture of pizza – lovingly crafted by a group of 6-year-olds.

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Trees

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I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Peregrination – a bad pun for a title

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Sorry, not been as regular as I’d like with the writing, and now that I’m back I’m wandering off subject.

This is an interesting link, though it can be a little short on action. Just had a look to see what was happening and the most exciting thing was a fly buzzing round. I imagine there will be a few of them about as it isn’t the most hygenic of nests. Can you imagine having that on a window ledge outside your office? I’m all for nature but I’d draw the line at having pigeons dismembered while I was trying to concentrate on a spreadsheet or whatever office workers do – I’m hazy on what office work involves as I’ve never done any.

This is another local example though the feed isn’t quite so good.

To be honest, I’ve never quite trusted peregrines – it’s the moustachios. Stick an opera cape and a top hat on them and they’d soon be off evicting widows and orphans.

Goshawk here. They seem to be becoming fashionable after H is for Hawk. I haven’t actually finished the book so I just spoiled the ending by reading the review. If you don’t want to spoil the ending don’t read the review. The book seems OK so far but from what I just read the ending isn’t up to much – it’s full of hope, and I’m not in favour of hope at the moment: it’s one of those days.

Peaceful Sunday Afternoon

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It sounds like it should be a song from the 60s but it’s just a description of what I’m now experiencing. With just the sound of poultry and sheep in the background it’s very relaxing. Even the occassional outbreak of raucous guimeafowlery can’t break the mood.

If you’d asked me for a title half an hour ago, while I was still engaged in moving watering cans, I wouldn’t have been so mellow. I would probably have muttered something terse in the beginning, but by the time of the twentieth something quite rude would probably have resulted. Not only would I have been trudging along with my 20th can of water, I’d also have been annoyed by the snails attacking my horseradish, various degrees of sun shrivelled foliage and the fact that I have forgotten my card reader.

So, despite having photographs I am unable to load them onto the computer. The antique machine here in the farm office doesn’t have a card slot (though neither does mine at home, to be fair) so after forgetting the card reader I am powerless. I did try taking photos with my phone but it’s a new and mysterious phone, and I can’t find out where it hides the images after I take them.

It was also a society for young men before the Great War, as I recall. I don’t, of course, recall the 1913, but I do remember my grandmother telling me that her father had been a Sunday School teacher and member of a group called Peaceful Sunday Afternoon. I have a book of his somewhere at home, concealed in several thousand other assorted books, with a PSA book plate. I have never been able to find anything about them on the internet, which is strange when you think what is documented on there.

Ah well, I will leave it there. I’m off to visit Number two son in Sheffield when Julia finishes work, so probably won’t have time to load photos tonight. Sorry about that but it will probably have to remain a pictureless blog post.

 

Pizzas and Open Farm Sunday

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We have built a Farmer for Open Farm Sunday so come and see us on June 7th if you can. We’ll be in the Education Tent and you can have a photo taken with your head in the hole. Thanks to our neighbour John for the painting and Shipshape Arts for the frame.

The expression says it all, doesn’t it? That’s a woman trapped in a marriage to an idiot if I ever saw one. She says much the same. However, after 25 years she also says she can’t be bothered to change me.

We have visitors tomorrow – the Mojatu Foundation are coming for a day out on the farm. It should be a good day and the pizza dough will, I’m hoping, be well received. I haven’t got round to mixing it yet, so all things are possible at the moment.

That’s about it for today – I have to go and tidy the polytunnels ready for vistors and mix dough.

Dough update – due to various factors too boring to tell, I had to do a bit of manoueuvring and reweighing. As a result we might, and I’m not admitting anything here, have one batch without olive oil and one batch with double the yeast and salt it should have. That’ll be the one trying to take over the world tomorrow morning.

Apart from that, all is fine and we should have 120 brillant pizzas tomorrow.

This picture is not, as you may think at first glance, a badly made dough map of India, but an example of the window pane test. Hoopefully the thinner areas are showing in the picture – the “window panes” that show the gluten is working properly. It’s a bit harder to demonstrate with wholemeal than it is with white flour but I thought I’d take the picture to make it seem like I knew what I was doing.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Another windy day

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At least we know the polytunnels are secure after the work we did on them yesterday. temperature is 10 or 11 degrees Centigrade according to the weather station but it feels colder, and the wind, consistently in the 20 mph range, particulalrly when accompanied by showers, isn’t improving matters. I don’t mind the cold and I can tolerate rain but I don’t like wind. When I worked on markets we always noticed the same thing – people would come out in the cold and most of them would come out in the rain, but the wind really used to keep them at home.

We just had a short thunderstorm and I suspect we appear on this map. We’re one of the northerly yellow crosses.

This morning we potted up parsley (flat and curly leaved) and tarragon, an endeavour that started going noticeably quicker once we turned on The Jam. You need something that moves the job along without causing too many spillages.

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The tea plantation is moving ahead nicely – new leaves are appearing and that first brew can’t be far off. I would invite you all for a taste but it’s unlikely to make more than a couple of cups to start with and it wouldn’t be worth the trip. You may notice that there’s half a leaf missing; it came off in my hand while I was admiring the soft new growth. I ate it to see what it tasted like because james Wong has a recipe for tea leaf and cucumber sandwiches. It didn’t taste of much but I wasn’t surprised as his recommendations have a habit of sounding better than they taste. It may be that I expect too much, or that I have no taste buds, but I have a growing suspicion that I am merely a gullible dupe in a global marketing operation.

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Apart from that it’s been a day of mixed fortunes. We’ve done quite a bit of tidying up but it’s been at the expense of planting and admin so the feeling of achievement is diluted by a vague feeling that i could have done better. One school has emailed to confirm a visit, and another has called to cancel because they can’t get buses on the days they want. Despite there being thousands of buses in the country and 365 days in a year schools seem to run their visit policy  on tha basis of limited dates and even more limited bus companies. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this problem.

For me it’s frustrating, and I imagine it’s worse for the teacher, who has just put a lot of effort into organising the trip. As for the kids – they will just have to stay inside instead of coming to the farm to hunt insects and bake a pizza for lunch.

That is life on a care farm!

In which I enter the Twittersphere…

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I’m on Twitter now in a self-seeking effort to publicise the project. I’ve been on for a while but really concentrated on button pressing this weekend, following people who run care farms, are local or are into the same sort of things that we are. I have moved from 14 followers, which was where it had been for months, to 283 though I am not sure some of them should be allowed access to a keyboard.

The problem is that after I hit 2,000 follows in the selfish hope of being followed back, I found that I couldn’t follow any more. So if anyone out there wants to follow me, feel free, but it may take a while until I can follow you back. The address is @QuercusCommy. They don’t let you have enough letters for a proper name.

The trouble is that they say you get more followers if you put a picture of yourself in the profile. That’s OK for normal people but I have a tendency to look grumpy at the best of times, and downright homicidal from some angles.

One of the kindest things that was said in the discussion was “Can I have a copy of that one, I want something to scare the kids away from the fridge.”

My hair and beard have grown a little since then and it now looks like my stuffing is leaking so I’m going to have a tidy up and get some new photos. In the meantime I’ll see if the followers keep coming when I have the picture up. I currently have 285 so they haven’t stopped yet.

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I think the books in the background make me look like an intellectual, My wife points out that both Dr Crippen and Buck Ruxton were well-educated, but you still wouldn’t want either of them as the public face of your business.

That’s @QuercusCommy – read about my boring life as it happens…