Monthly Archives: November 2015

A windy night and a storm with a name

We had high winds last night, strong enough to be named Storm Barney. No, I don’t know why we’ve started naming storms, and if I had my way I would ban the naming of weather. It’s OK for hurricanes but 85 mph winds that rattle a few roof tiles don’t need names.

As a result we turned up at the centre to find we had a polytunnel that looked a little like a burst balloon, with a selection of tears and slack plastic flapping in the wind. Fortunately the problem is mainly cosmetic and now we have secured the covering it looks a lot better. There are three minor holes that need patching but nothing of any importance, so it’s a lot better than we first thought.

We knew we were close to having to replace the cover and to be fair we should probably have replaced it this year. In the end we fixed a hole, replaced some hotspot tape and gave the whole thing a wash. It’s still better than some covers you see, but it is in a windy spot and getting a bit brittle. Tempting as it is to try for another year it looks like we’re going to have to grit our teeth and buy a new cover.

Half of me says we should make it last as long as possible because it’s a better sustainability option (and because I’m tight). The other half of me is afraid of turning up one day and finding plants and hoops standing there with no cover.

It’s secure for the moment, with all clips in place and weights all round as an extra precaution. I say “weights” but it does look a bit like someone has sprinkled the contents of a skip round the outside of the tunnel. We have used some old sinks we rescued from a skip so it’s not an unfair comparison. As long as it lasts until spring we’ll be OK.

So if any of you are passing by next spring we might have a job for you…

Book Reviews and a man stuck in a cupboard

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Two book reviews in two days. I’m in danger of becoming industrious! Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be able to fight it off.

There is method in my madness of course, if I put it on the review page and on here it swells the review page and increases the number of posts, even if it is only a copy of the other review. The crafty bit is this – by publishing a post I’m automatically publishing on Twitter so it’s three for the price of one.

Now, I may get a stiff note from an affronted author by publishing my reviews this widely, and I’m in no state to engage in a battle of wits with a man who uses words like fortissimo and perambulating – that’s loud and walking to me – but it’s worth it just to avoid the grind of thinking about Twitter for another day. The constant search for news is wearing me down, particularly as I’m doing @QuercusCommy, @farmecodavid and @ScrevetonShed – all of them in a somewhat intermittent manner at the moment.

I’ll leave you with a photograph of Byron, the farm apprentice, changing a smoke alarm battery. It’s quite cramped in the cupboard with the electrical and heating equipment and the alarm was clearly fitted before they rammed the rest of the gubbins in. To keep the story short, we realised there was a problem when the lights went out due his struggles to free himself.

I’m developing the instincts of a news photographer now – taking the photograph first and offering help second.

Meadowland

The Private Life of an English Field

by John Lewis-Stempel Black Swan London 2015 Paperback 291 pp

ISBN 978-0552778992

£8.99 though as you can see from the photograph I did get a bit of a deal from Waterstones.

A good read, and an informative nature book – one of my favourite combinations. What could possibly be better (apart from the addition of some cake recipes)?

Well, maybe it could be improved by using a year that had some meaning for the farm rather than a simple calendar year, and I was left with the impression that nature sometimes fitted a bit too neatly into the structure of the book. A few descriptions of times spent not seeing anything of note might have balanced the book a little more. While I’m criticising, it could be that the writing could benefit from lightening up a bit. It’s a little dense in places and reminds me of past writers. However the language stays modern, even if I did feel there was an ever-present danger of a Latin quote lurking over the page

Apart from those minor points I have no quibbles.

It’s a fine example of how I like these these books to be – a tour through time and an examination of the present fitting together to set everything in context. There is a lot of wildlife on his farm, but he’s realistic enough in tone to know that he’s lucky, and that there’s not as much wildlife as there used to be. It’s also an example of what you can see if you develop the habit of observation. I used to be observant as a child, but I seem to have lost the knack as I grew older. Maybe I’m entering my second childhood now, as I’m starting to see more, but maybe it’s just that I have more time to stand and watch as I grow older.

Ups and downs

Punching a puppy and other office jargon

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No, I haven’t suddenly decided to turn to a life of animal cruelty and being hated by small children. If you read the business jargon link in the penultimate paragraph, all will become clear. It was just too good a title to pass up.

I can now reveal Julia’s secret destination to be Eden Hall Spa. I think she is safe from kidnap now as I am on the point of picking her up and whisking her away for a birthday meal somewhere that she won’t have to wash up. Gosh, I treat her well…

The website, though informative about the experience you can purchase, is strangely reticent on the subject of former uses for the building.

They are less reticent here and here. I particularly like the term fish bait farm. They mean maggots. I had some dealings with maggot farms in the past and I confess I’ve never seen one as grand as this, or ever thought “This would make a nice up-market health spa.” It’s also been a poultry farm, a kennels, offices, restaurant and equestrian centre.

Just to add a little more to the story, the conservatory, that once held 2,000 plants, was destroyed in 1942 when a Lancaster exploded at Syserston. I’m assuming that it was loaded with bombs at the time. The Lancaster, that is, not the conservatory.

There is a footnote about an explosion here, and a mention of Bill Reid VC who used to work at BOCM with my father, as I may have mentioned previously. I think, to be fair, he was more famous for winning the VC than for working at BOCM.

So there you go – a relaxing day of luxury for one half of the family while the other has been making wooden signs with Men in Sheds and wrestling with the complexities of merging the views of five people into one SWOT analysis. The process has been slightly simplified by one member of the management committee saying that he prefers to stick to blue-sky thinking rather than think of negative things like weaknesses. That, of course, is what landed us in this situation in the first place – 500 great ideas but no actual progress.

Anyway, that’s all for now – I just had the phone call that the day of pampering is over.

Old age and treachery

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After a morning spent doing the heavy lifting for Julia, who is in “clean up for Christmas” mode, I continued my “day off” (as we married men call it) with a spot of lunch at The Big Fish before taking her shopping. She’s at work now, earning the money that allows us to continue with the Quercus project, so I suppose I should be counting my blessings rather than complaining.

I will keep telling myself how lucky I am when I drag myself away from the evening episode of Pointless to pick her up from work, and again tomorrow when we get up early so I can deliver her to her birthday treat and leave her to be pampered for the day. I would provide you with a link but I won’t, as I can’t run the risk of a possible kidnapping – without her I might have to get a proper job.

Have to go now – need to get the vegetables in the oven. I’m still basking in the smug glow of two pointless answers – Bismark and Lofoten. It’s amazing what the brain retains. If only I could work out a way of making money from knowing useless facts I’d be a happy man. And richer.

Time to go now, having just witnessed an outrageous bluff by two older gents on their way to the Pointless final. It made me laugh, it put the youngsters out, and it gave me the title for today’s post.

The weight of history

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It’s Armistice Day again (is it my imagination or is the old name making a comeback after years of Remembrance Day) and time to take a walk up to the Screveton air crash memorial.

On 14th April 1944 a Lancaster and an Airspeed Oxford collided over the village. Margaret Rose, mother of farmer David, was playing with friends when she heard a tremendous bang and looked up to see two aircraft falling to earth.

The pilots both steered the aircraft clear of the houses, crashing in open fields on the edge of the village with the loss of all eleven crew on board.

We go every year because it’s just on the side of the road by the farm. This year we had the company of a charm of goldfinches in a blackthorn tree.

I’ll finish with a poem. It’s not one that I’ve seen before, but I found it whilst looking for Adelstrop, as the blog has mentioned birdsong and the war it seemed to fit in nicely with the poem and the death of Edward Thomas on the Western Front. This seemed more fitting for the day, though I also found this one.

Killed in Action (Edward Thomas)

Happy the man whose home is still
In Nature’s green and peaceful ways;
To wake and hear the birds so loud,
That scream for joy to see the sun
Is shouldering past a sullen cloud.

And we have known those days, when we
Would wait to hear the cuckoo first;
When you and I, with thoughtful mind,
Would help a bird to hide her nest,
For fear of other hands less kind.

But thou, my friend, art lying dead:
War, with its hell-born childishness,
Has claimed thy life, with many more;
The man that loved this England well,
And never left it once before.

W H Davies

The next post will be more cheerful!

Vinegar, ginger and flies

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You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, according to the old saying.

I’ve never actually noticed a cloud of flies hanging round my breakfast honey, but I’ll go along with it, as it makes sense that you’ll get better results by being nice to people. In theory, anyway.

In practice you can also get pretty good results by scaring the hell out of people. History has plenty of examples of dictators who ruled with an iron fist but not many who used a troop of comedians as enforcers. When the Romans spoke of “bread and circuses” they weren’t talking about clowns – although a dictator backed up by a gang of clowns could be quite scary.

However, I digress.

I have just been looking at the cider vinegar jars.

As you can probably see, all the liquid is looking pretty much the same and, although you can’t tell, they are all smelling pretty much the same. They also have a fine selection of flies floating on top.

So, to summarise, cider vinegar production seems to be going well, but next time I want something to cover jars I will use something with a smaller mesh. I used some bandage from an old first aid kit, which seemed like a good idea at the time, and cheaper than muslin, but it hasn’t really worked.

I’ve also been testing the ginger.

Two weeks ago it was more fibrous than the shop-bought variety, and tasted a little earthy. At the time I thought I’d probably boil the ginger more and change the water, as recommended in some of the recipes. However, two weeks later the earthiness has disappeared. It’s still a bit fibrous, but I’m not bothered about that. It tastes good, it’s got a good degree of heat to it and the syrup has taken on a good colour.

I think we’ll call this one a success, though there is one problem remaining – I made it to give away at Christmas, but now I want it all for myself.

The Joy of Lists

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There just seem to be too many Fridays in my life.

At this point I ought to add that I don’t want to relinquish any of my remaining days, just that it would be nice to slow things down a little.

That’s why I’m spending some of my precious time writing plans. Things tend to get done when you write them down, whilst things in your head tend to slip by. Things like the Wild Food page, which has been dismally neglected of late.

I’ve now started a catalogue of plants to be foraged, as I want to eat more wild food next year and run more sessions about foraging. The result is that I find I know about a lot more plants than the ones I normally talk about, but I’ve also discovered a new plant in the garden. What I had thought was just another colour of dead nettle is in fact ground ivy. I’m pretty sure, looking at the pictures, that we also have henbit around the place. I really need to pay more attention.

Ground Ivy

In this case it doesn’t make much difference, they are just three more sets of small salad leaves with a few medicinal uses, though if you ate a lot of ground ivy it may prove toxic. Like so many things “a lot” is probably more than you’re likely to eat, like the toxic dose of chickweed, which I’ve seen listed as “several kilos”. I would have trouble eating several kilos of anything, even bananas, so I should imagine that if you manage to eat that amount of garden weeds you have more problems than poisoning.

I’ve also found some more wood sorrel. I think it’s the purple variety of creeping wood sorrel – Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea – as we foragers say. I tried some that was growing in a pot in the polytunnel earlier in the year and it is remarkably clean and lemony in taste. If only all foraged leaves were as nice.

Creeping wood sorrel – purple variety

After two days of making sure I work on my foraging knowledge for a couple of hours a day I already feel like I’ve accomplished as much in two days as I did in the preceding two weeks.

I’m going to be making a list of recipes to try too, so the Recipe page should start being more active too.

And before anyone says it, yes “typical man” and his lists.

Things that went right

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Well, I did a post a while back on things that didn’t go according to plan. I’m feeling a bit more upbeat at the moment, so here’s a companion piece about a few things that went right.

The agriforestry project is going nicely and we’ve just had a review of the results from the Woodland Trust, with Quercus Community being mentioned (which is unusual as we normally get missed out or referred to as “farm staff”). That’s good because everyone is going to get a copy of the report to take home and show their parents.

We’ve just started planting under the trees as part of the second phase, with rhubarb and wild garlic going in.Some of the rhubarb is Timperley Early from the market and some is Early Red that we grew from seed this year.

You can’t see much rhubarb in the picture, but if it’s ever viewed by the right village it will probably solve the mystery of where their idiot disappeared to all those years ago.

Based on this year’s harvest and the pressing we should be on for a bumper year next year. So far we’ve passed the production for last year and the cider is tasting good. There’s a slight disagreement on that subject at the moment – I think it’s shaping up nicely to be a flat, dry cider. The farmer thinks it’s like vinegar, but I suspect that’s because his idea of cider is something sweet and fizzy. So far all we’ve done is put it in a demijohn with an airlock and the natural yeast from the apples. We may add a little sugar to give it some sparkle but I’m hoping that will be all. Quite honestly I’ve been a bit surprised by the number of things some people add to the stuff when you read some of the recipes on the Internet.

And finally, here is the Sloe Gin. The photo is a bit strange because the flash shows up all the mess on the glass and alters the colour a little. I’ve just had to decant it all into a bigger jar as the seal on one of the smaller ones started to leak (something we only found when someone tipped one up to look at it). Despite that it’s looking (and tasting) good, though I only had a couple of spoonfuls that wouldn’t fit into the new jar. Honest.Drunk in charge of an Ecocentre wouldn’t look good on my record.

What Warren Buffett taught me

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According to this article you should keep on learning, and according to Warren Buffett you should do this by reading 500 pages a day.

I’m not sure I could read 500 pages a day if I was having to concentrate on it but I do, on a lower level, always try to learn something new every day. I was listening to Radio 4 today (I listen to the radio more now it doesn’t sound like it’s being transmitted by a deep fat fryer) and found out from an interview with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that up to 40% of the food we produce is thrown away.

The blame falls mainly on the supermarkets for imposing standards that don’t matter – for instance, do you care if your parsnip is 70 or 75 mm in width, straight or slightly bent? I don’t, but it appears that supermarkets are imposing these standards on my behalf. (Nice to see him advocating the use of leftovers for soup, I now feel better about my laissez-faire attitude to soup making).

I have also learn,t by reading silverbells’ blog, that you can use an apple to ripen green tomatoes and that you don’t get the same fly and decay problems you do with a banana.

That’s all for now – there will be photos later in the day as I try to get back into the swing of things with a discussion on rhubarb and a discussion of meetings (yes, I’ve been in more meetings this week – two already and a third arranged for tomorrow. At least, with a bit of careful camouflage, I was able to catch up on some sleep. Until Julia made me blackboard monitor, then I had to stay awake.

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Life after the Care Farm