Tag Archives: Care Farm

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…

Another day, another title

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I’m struggling to think up new titles for my posts. Half of me wants to become a bit tabloid (“Great tits on the table today!” is so tempting when discussing the presence of Parus Major at the bird table.) The other half of me wants to take the easy way out with a dull title such as “Tuesday”.

The problem is that I don’t think the tabloid approach helps build a quality image, and the other approach just leads to a confusing number of posts named after days of the week.

We had a group from a MENCAP gardening group. They were out our way to collect horse manure and had arranged to drop in. We had a chat and home made mince pies, sold them a hamper and a couple of penguin tree decorations and invited them back next year for National Breakfast week.

We’re planning on having a few groups out for breakfast next year, raising some cash for Mary’s Meals and raising awareness of how important breakfast is. It’s a continuation of the work we’ve been doing on breakfasts , and a continuation of the National Porridge Day work we started last year.

The Bread Group raised £26 for Mary’s Meals last week when they did their Christmas meal, which was kind of them (as was the food they left in the fridge for me). Hopefully we will be adding to this next month, particularly as we will have the Saturday morning cafe participating for the first time.

Jobs for the Day

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1) Check electricity meter readings

2) Feed Polish chickens

3) Make beadwork Christmas wreaths for keyrings

4) Make mince pies for visitors tomorrow

5) Answer interminable boring emails

6) Make lots of cups of tea (important job!)

7) Clean bird feeders and set up new seed feeder

8) Communal reading of Farmers’ Weekly

9) Set up skittle alley in barn

10) Referee cut throat game of Noughts and Crosses

11) Plan menus for meals on Wednesday and Thursday

12) Arrange for pick up of chicken that Johno is donating to one of the group

And that’s just for starters – there’s always plenty more to do. My next job, however, is making sandwiches for lunch…

Wednesday already?

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Yes, it’s Wednesday already and the group is just arriving. One of the parents has just told us the guineafowl are all over the road (fortunately walking rather than flat) and the first task of the day is going to find them and guide them back into the fields. For those of you who have never kept guineafowl or peacocks – once you get them you will have a lot of people giving you messages like this as they tend to go wherever they like with complete disregard for modern traffic – a bit like like my great uncle who can’t see why he needs to go over 15 mph.

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They like the roads and often have a walk along them, much to the concern of passing motorists. It’s easier for doing distances I suppose, and from what we’ve seen they also like picking up grit as they potter along.

Grit is an interesting subject when keeping birds. When I first started in the poultry industry we regulalrly fed two sorts of grit to our breeders, but then I was taught the business by someone who had started keeping poultry in the 1920s. As time went by grit became a thing of the past.

The two sorts of grit are insoluble or flint grit, which supposedly aids the grinding process in the gizzard and soluble grit, or oystershell, which is assimilated by the bird to ensure good egg shells. It now seems that birds are capable of digesting food without using grit. Modern poultry rations seem able to include enough calcium to make oystershell superfluous, though that isn’t what I’m talking about here.

Wild birds still seem to like picking up grit, a fact that is used in the medication of red grouse in the wild. They may need it to help with digestion but they probably also extract minerals from it as it breaks up. Again, modern rations contain enough vitamins and minerals for poultry without them having to eat grit.

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For once I actually have a picture of the right species of bird!

Soup

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There’s been a lot of soup about this week. There’s been a lot of many things to be fair, but I happen to have a photograph of the soup and photographs are important for blogs.

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It isn’t the greatest picture of soup: I clearly need to work on the presentation.  I had intended to take a better one today with a swirl of cream and some chopped herbs but I forgot the cream and nobody wanted any chopped herbs.

We had someone renting the main room for a couple of days and they asked if we could do lunches. Soup seemed a good idea, being warm, nourishing and within budget. What, as they say, could possibly go wrong?

Well, on the first day it turned out that three of the six attendees didn’t like soup. Unfortunately  I didn’t find out until I had made the soup for the second day.

On the second day it turned out that we had two untouched bowls and one half eaten (or drunk?) bowl. Progress indeed.

I would offer you the recipes but with that sort of success rate it probably isn’t worth your time. If you want a couple of imprecise recipes for Carrot and Parsnip soup or Pea Soup feel free to ask.

 

Parakeets and the Pareto Principle

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Before you ask, this isn’t a new scientific concept – the two things are linked only in my head. Sorry if you are a mathematical ornithologist, but this isn’t the exciting breakthrough you were hoping for.

Tuesday morning dawned in a foggy fashion and we headed off through heavy morning traffic to a retail park on the other side of town with Hobbycraft as our target. Half an hour later, and £40 lighter, we were back in the car.

Now that Halloween is over our next big thing is Christmas. We will make Christmas cards two weeks before Christmas and have Christmas dinner the week before. A range of design and build skills will be on show, ranging from excellent to dreadful and there will be endless rows about who gets the best stuff to work with, and that’s just the volunteers. The members of the group behave slightly better, though two of them do base their design work on the Pareto Principle –  trying to stick 80% of the decorations to their 20% of the cards. We’re working out a method of rationing for this year.

It will be a lesson in cooperation, and maybe even an exercise in maths if we organise it properly.

On a different subject we had a phone call while we were on the way here – we have someone else interested in joining the regular group. He’s coming tomorrow to see how he gets on with the rest of the group and if he likes us. I’m hoping he will as he adds a new dimension to the group, having developed dementia as an adult rather than being born with learning difficulties. He has a practical background so I’m hoping we will be able to get the nest box plan going again.

Finally, when we arrived the parakeet was in one of the trees behind the kitchen. It’s the third time we’ve seen it perching there and the fourth time we’ve seen it in total. We couldn’t get a photograph and couldn’t pick up the colour because the sun was behind it but it did look and sound very much like the ring-necked parakeets we saw when one of the kids was playing rugby in Middlesex. It was a surreal day to say the least – parakeets flying over, aircraft landing at Heathrow and the after-match meal cooked on barbecues under the trees at the edge of the field. I imagine that ours is an escapee rather than a visitor from down south. I hope so because they are they are a nuisance when you get too many of them, as Esher Rugby Club found out.

Back from holiday

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After touring Kendal Farmers’ Market and a number of farm shops (a story which might crop up in days to come) I thought this might be a good time to say that we do sell stuff on the farm. As you can see above, we sell apple juice which we press on the farm. We also sell honey, but we don’t do much with that – just rob bees and shove it in jars.

Though I’m a determined omnivore I have to concede that vegans have a point when it comes to bees. We run them ragged all summer pollinating crops and flowers then when they have filled their stores for the winter we steal the honey. However, I like eating honey and don’t have any immediate plans to give it up. Having said that, when I consider how hard they work to make honey it will give me cause to think next time I eat honey.

A spoonful of honey represents the life’s work of 10 worker bees. It takes the work of 7,500 workers to fill one of our jars and in doing this they visit 1.5 million flowers and fly 40,000 miles. It’s little wonder that they only live six weeks.

We’re open for sales from 9.00 – 1.00 on Saturday mornings when the Community Cafe can also provide you with drinks, cakes and breakfasts. Directions can be found here. Due to the international nature of the internet that means that most people reading this won’t be able to visit – sorry about that, but if you are ever around you will know where to find us.

 

Porridge

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World Porridge day has been and gone. We ate Likuni Phala to get into the swing of things. That’s Malawian porridge – four cups of maize kernels and a cup of soya beans with 15 cups of water. TESCO provided maize meal, which was a useful short-cut, and textured soya protein, also known as soya mince. I had intended reducing the soya to a more meal-like consistency in a blender, but I forgot to pack it . First I tried a rolling pin but still ended up with some recognisable pieces of mince. That was when the stick blender came into play.

Next time I’m going to seal the top of the jug with cling film. It wasn’t as bad as when the courgette soup went wrong, but having said that we’re still finding crumbs of soya twenty four hours later.

The day was supposed to be about comparing ourselves with other countries, so I also made oatmeal porridge to compare with the Likuni Phala. Unfortunately, given a choice kids always go for the familiar. Eight out of twelve refused to try the foreign porridge and even the ones who did try it covered it in sugar. From the point of view of comparison, and nutrition, I have delivered better education sessions.

On the other hand we did make sure everyone had plenty of porridge. As many of the group had free school lunches (which always seems to feature a plain grated cheese sandwich in white bread) this was probably a good thing.

After looking at the animals and learning more about how we grow and use wheat (what we refer to as our Seed to Sandwich presentation) it as time for the kitchen session. I’ve been working on a simple scone recipe because it gives us something to spread our home-made jam on. It also, being Hedgerow Jam, allows us to talk about foraging and alternative foods. People who wouldn’t think of trying something new when offered porridge seem happy to eat anything if it’s in the form of jam. The amount of sugar probably helps.

The first time we tried the recipe the mix turned out a bit dry. This time it was a little too soft. A bit of extra flour soon cleared that up. Next time I may get it right.

Next time, I will get something else wrong.

I’ve been thinking of what to write as a first post about Green Care for several months now, Finally I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what I do it isn’t going to be as good as I want it to be, but at least I managed a key word in the first sentence, which is what I’m supposed to do.

That may be the last time I do anything because I’m supposed to do it. In a life characterised by drifting it might be asking too much of a blog if I expect it to correct my character flaws as well as publicise Quercus Community.

It’s also slightly misleading because I probably won’t be writing much about Green Care, just about a series of events that occur as I drift through life supposedly assisting my wife. She’s the one who set the Quercus project up with a friend and she’s the one with the sense of purpose and the crusading spirit. Today, for instance, I have been baking quiche (using ready-made pastry cases), looking at the World Porridge Day website, thinking about writing press releases and sorting out paperwork. Pleasant as they may be, I can’t see porridge or quiche changing the world. Nor can I see much paperwork being done.

Meanwhile my wife and her co-director have been outside in the cold and rain with our usual Wednesday group engaging in horticultural therapy and using the Green Gym. In everyday English that’s “gardening”.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a picture. It’s our guinea fowl doing what guinea fowl do best – loafing about in a big group, Just like teenagers with feathers. They’ve had a busy day so far, looking for bugs, taunting the sick turkeys in the hospital pen and dodging showers. In this picture they are sheltering under a table. Every other bird in the county is in a hedge, but ours are sheltering under a picnic table.

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However, they do eat a lot of pests and according to most websites they don’t damage plants. My experience is that they did shred a courgette by roosting on it as it grew at the top of a tyre stack. And they probably did pull a neighbour’s onion sets up. They were certainly in the area, though it could have been anyone. But as I say, they do eat a lot of pests, and they do deposit a fair amount of manure so I can live with that.

Or as Bill Mollison the permaculture man put it:

You don’t have a snail problem, you have a duck deficiency!