Category Archives: Green Care

Games, bamboo and beans

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It’s not often we welcome a sports personality to the group but we did today, after his trip to the Disabled Games at Scunthorpe. So it’s congratulations for a job well done (including archery and curling) and a big thank you to the Rotary Club for putting on  the games.

Despite predictions of cloud and rain over the weekend we pretty much seem to have had good weather. Too good for the plants in the polytunnel – some of which had laid down and died on heat stress on Sunday. I was in on Saturday so I know all was well then. Current forecast indicates we are in for some cooler days but they haven’t exactly covered themselves with accuracy for the last ten days so I don’t know what to believe.

I’ve been ordering a few new seeds as I crave excitement in the garden and don’t think I’ll be getting that from phlox, onions and feverfew. So it’s hello to Giant Bamboo and Bananas. The Giant Bamboo is suposed to grow a foot a day when it gets into its stride so I’m looking forward to that. It’s going to make an interesting photo diary at the very least, and next year’s bean frames are going to be pretty spectacular if it gets anywhere near its predicted 100 foot tall.

Final picture is of our new, slightly out of kilter, X-shaped bean frame. The theory is that the beans will hang down and be easier to pick from an X than from an inverted V. I’ve seen a more sophisticated version of this in a book – I think by Alan Titchmarsh – which was a timber frame supporting a proper V shape. If the X works I may look at going the whole hog next year.

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More news on the beans is that the roots we saved from last year are starting to form shoots. Normally gardening books tell you to cut the top part off and leave the roots in to the soil so that all the nitrogen they have fixed from the air will go back to the soil. A couple of years ago  Julia read an article saying that runner beans were perennials and you could store the roots like dahlia tubers. We did it and they seemed OK. Opinions on the net seem a little mixed but we’ll give them another year and see what happens.

 

The postman calls

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Big news of the day is that the tea bushes arrived. For the moment “bushes” might be an expression of hope rather than fact (as you can see from the picture) but I have confidence. As usual I have the plants well in advance of knowing how to look after them. I vaguely remember they need ericaceous compost but can’t remember much else. I should have learned from the Great Gimger Debacle but I didn’t. One day my polytunnel will pulsate with exotic life.

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For the moment, in the exotic line, it has nine tea twigs and some sorry looking bits of ginger in it.

We had a birthday party today, launched a massive attack on the garden weeds and planted more seeds. Now that my French beans and multi-coloured carrots are coming up I feel more inspired to plant more. The rhubarb seds are coming up too, but the comfrey has still to appear. We also had three more bookings for school trips – 180 kids, some as young as five, spread over four days. Let’s just say that everyone has their own personal hell. Mine features five year olds. They squeak. They fill each others’ pockets with stones. They don’t listen. And you feel guilty when you threaten them.

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That’s all for now – I have to set up for tonight’s visit from the Young Farmers’ Club and then we’re going out for a meal with the kids to celebrate having time to go out for a meal when all four of us are available.

Ours is a life of simple pleasures.

 

An Ambassador calls

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THis is a picture of Sue, who is the new Health and Wellbeing Ambassadoer to the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. You can tell she’s an ambassador because she arrived with a box of Ferrero Rocher. If you live in a country which doesn’t use an ambassador for advertising this reference will probably mean nothing to you.

This is the ancient and revered office of High Sheriff rather than the Sheriff of Nottingham who is a sort of second mayor and not at all as posh. This year’s High Sheriff attended the ceremony in full ceremonial regalia and a turban, which looks a lot better than a cocked hat. I’m told (as I don’t get invited to such things) that as it was conducted in a Sikh temple and that the male invitees (including a judge and a Bishop) had to wear blue handkerchieves on their heads. I’m put in mind of a blue hankerchief looking like a do-rag . I may be wrong, but you can never tell.

The High Sheriff, when chosen, is pricked with a bodkin, though (disappointingly) it’s really only a parchment that gets pricked. It would be much more fun to stick a needle into the actual High Sheriff and watch him jump.

However, eschewing all comedy, and banishing thoughts of Alan Rickman, this is a serious matter. We’re going to be part of a big push to make Nottinghamshire a more healthy county, and it all starts here! It’s a case of one step at a time but with Sue driving it and taking a group of enthusiastic volunteers with her I’m sure we’ll be seeing a change by the end of the year.

Screveton Kitchen Nightmares

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I’d love to get Gordon Ramsay down here to sort things out.

Why, you may ask, would I want to unleash a psycho-chef on the poor unsuspecting users of our kitchen. Well, not all, just the one, to be honest.

We’ve always had this view on the farm that more is better. Sometimes it’s about involving so many people in a simple process so that it becomes unmanageable. Other times it’s about wallpapering the centre with multiple posters – the official line is that the more you put up the more people read them. Don’t know what anyone else thinks of this – I tend to think that too many posters cause poster blindness.

Any comments anyone? Am I right (as I think I am) or am I just being a grumpy old man (as my wife assures me)?

Not sure where this bolshie streak has come from. I remember thinking John Ball had a lot going for him and next thing I know whenever people talk of community allotments (as we are doing at the moment) I have started to think of Winstanley.

Let me know what you think – I’m off to check out Billy Bragg on You Tube.

A few numbers

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It’s been a packed month. I’ve been telling people I haven’t had a proper day off for two weeks but looking back at the diary I don’t seem to have stopped all month. That’s partly due to a lack of organisational skills rather than just workload.  I really ought to make time off for my family, but when I say that at home they always tell me it isn’t necessary…

In that time we’ve hosted five school visits, a guide pack (or whatever group they come in),  two nursery visits, two college days,  two lamb days, an evening meeting, four yoga classes, two baking days, our regular Quercus days, a party and  three other events. That’s around 275 individuals, plus the people who came to eat at the cafe.

Hopefully they enjoyed themselves and some of them learnt something. Even if they didn’t they did leave us some compost so no visit is wasted.

 

 

Birds, frogs and staying inside while my wife gets cold

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Life only seems to have two themes at the moment – birds and paperwork.

Last week it was the Big Farm Birdwatch, this week is National Nest Box week. We have some boxes to put up so it’s a good memory jogger to have the week.

Meanwhile, after having another memory jog (this time in the slightly menacing form of an Environmental Health Officer), it’s time to go through the kitchen diary. It’s a bit like the frog boiling exercise so beloved of management gurus – we’ve changed a few things over the last couple of years and although it doesn’t seem a big thing at the time it accumulates to become a major change.

When we had the kitchen registered, and I first filled in the handbook, we were mainly doing bread and (vegetarian) pizza sessions with schools, youth groups and our own bread group.

We were also catering for the shoot about 8 times a year, and we added catering for groups using the centre. Open farm Sunday came round and we used it for the weekend and when someone suggested opening as a Saturday morning Cafe it didn’t seem like a big jump.

But when someone from outside arrives and points out all the changes, you suddenly realise what the words “victim of your own success” mean. In our case they mean that although we’ve been producing a quality breakfast and have plenty of repeat custom we don’t have, for instance, an up-to-date list of suppliers, or ingredients used in the kitchen or allergens or…well the list goes on.

I must add here, if only for the sake of the cafe’s reputation, that frog isn’t on the menu and we have no intention of adding it.

Looking on the bright side, while I’ve been inside risking RSI to both my tryping fingers Julia and the group have been outside in the pouring rain doing useful and healthy things.

Useful, healthy, cold and wet things. Ah well!

Changes

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As you may have noticed, we are slowly adding new subjects to the site. We already have a section on the Ecocentre and a selection of photographs and yesterday added a book review page. I’m going to add some food and recipe pages soon but there’s a problem I need to overcome first.

I meant to do some food blogging while we were on holiday in the Lake District last year but I ran into two problems. One is that I’m embarrassed by my own odd behavior in taking pictures of my food, particularly when the flash goes off or a small child points out what I’m doing. The second is that I often eat the subject of the blog before taking the picture. The pies at Tebay services on the M6, for instance, are really good (though they are possibly kept in the warming cabinet a little too long). We had them twice, and both times I found myself looking down at the biodegradable packaging and a few crumbs. What was worse is that on the second occasion I had gone there with the intention of getting a photograph.

The same applies to cookery – there’s no embarrassment but I do still tend to eat things before remembering to take a photograph. There’s the additional problem of having no flair for food photography, but it can’t be that hard compared to some branches of photography. It doesn’t explode and it doesn’t bite so how hard can it be? I will just have to try harder.

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That’s a cheese and home-made soda bread cob made from wheat that was harvested in the morning and eaten at lunchtime. It’s quite a good shot, but unfortunately it isn’t one of mine.

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This is one of mine. It’s home-made piccalilli. The red bits are chillis because somebody told me it wasn’t spicy enough last year. Nobody has said that this year.

Geese

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This is the 50th post on the blog and I’m typing it under the handicap of having cut my finger. It isn’t a big cut but it’s right on the tip of the middle finger of my right hand and it’s painful to keep hitting the keyboard with it. I say painful but I suppose in terms of childbirth it doesn’t hurt much. However, it is irritating.

I would not have said, until this morning, that I used it for typing much. I’m still convinced that I use my index fingers for most of my typing, but once you put a plaster on the middle finger it seems to become dominant. Maybe I’m actually a three-fingered typist and have only just realised.

Anyway, apart from moaning about my cut finger and making tea the first job of the day was goose herding. They stay in the barn overnight and we bring them across the yard to their pen for the day. I’m not sure they are always grateful but it was a nice bright day today so it didn’t trouble my conscience. As you can see, it’s a team effort.

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Before the days of lorries this used to be the way that all large poultry were moved.

Traditionally geese are ready for market by Michaelmas (29th September), which marked the end of harvest and the start of the new farming year. People who could afford it would have a goose for Michaelmas. and it was the traditional Christmas fowl.  Approximately 20,000 geese a year were driven to Nottingham from Lincolnshire, entering the town through Goose Gate and ending up at the Goose Fair in the market place. In those days they used to apply tar to the feet of the geese to help them complete the long walk. Ours only have to walk a few yards so we don’t need to bother with tar.

This sounds impressive but set it against the estimated 250,000 turkeys that walked from Norfolk to London in 1720 it seems quite small. There were so many turkeys walking to London by the 19th Century that there were actually traffic jams of turkey flocks.

If only I’d known this before Christmas while it was still topical!

 

 

 

Back to normal

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It’s the first day with the big group all back and everyone is comparing Christmas presents and illnesses. Chest infections have been popular over Christmas (and continue to be popular as an excuse for not working outside!) and new phones seem to have been popular presents.

My phone is now over a year old and is seen as a positive antique. If it hadn’t been for the unfortunate conjunction of phone and cup of tea I’d still be using a four-year-old phone. It had survived being dropped in the washing up water but the tea was a step too far. If I’d been having a virtuous day it would have been OK but I’d backslid and put sugar in it, and phones don’t cope well with sticky stuff. An ancient phone isn’t a problem to me, I’m still old-fashioned enough to see a telephone as a communicatiion device instead of a platform for games and music and searching the internet.

We’re waiting for lambing at the moment and had a couple of goes at moving sheep. They didn’t work well, as sheep despite their reputation for following the leader, don’t like to walk across muddy ground. The driving of ducks and geese went better, but mud isn’t really an issue for them, and as dusk came they made tracks for the barn with a minimum of drama.

Meanwhile the guineafowl have been invading gardens again, so all is well and truly back to normal.

I really must remmeber to start using the camera again…

 

Buzzards in the snow

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Another trip to Peterborough and not a kite to be seen. There was only one kestrel and that was hunched on a lamp post by the side of the A52 pretending to be a buzzard.

I did manage to get three good views of buzzards.They were all pale forms and they were all puffed up against the cold. It must be a miserable existence being a bird in winter. One of the sightings was unusual because the bird was perching in a tree by the side of a flyover. As I drove past I actually had the strange experience of looking down on a perching buzzard – even if I was only looking down on it by a matter of inches.

It was a good day for magpies, hopping around on ground that was conveniently coloured black and white by melting snow.

Back at home I went through the back of a bird watching magazine, the section where they list all the rarities. Last month we went past a pond and saw a white heron-sized bird. Great white egret, I decided, though it’s nice to confirm there has been one about. I couldn’t see any news of one on the internet but the magazine report shows there were some sightings in Derbyshire, which will do for me. It also shows there were ring-necked parakeets seen in West Bridgford and Aspley, though we haven’t seen any recently.

Glad to say we’ll be starting back in a few days as I want to start getting things ready for the bird watch and the porridge day, and get my Christmas present into action. Yes, it will be all action once we get back…