Tag Archives: poppies

The Care Farm Experience

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Red Admiral
Comma

 

It’s been a lazy day today. I’ve tried to be enthusiastic but I didn’t get back from Leeds until 1am this morning and when I tried to go to sleep all I could see was motorway traffic on the back of my eyelids. It was around 3am before I got to sleep, then I woke up at 5…

It wasn’t the best of starts.

At least I know I have done my duty as a father (the one that involves passing cash across and acting as a taxi driver, rather than the bit where you impart moral education and the Laws of Rugby).To make things worse I didn’t write a list of jobs to do, which always leads to wasted time.

It was a strange day for butterflies. We had the usual suspects (whites and small tortoiseshells) but managed a Painted Lady, Red Admiral and Comma. We haven’t seen a Comma or Red Admiral for months.

Julia has been industrious, trying out crafts for Flintham Ploughing Match. She has decided, after a somewhat fraught session, that straw weaving won’t make the cut – it just takes too much time and concentration. We will just take some corn dollies and information sheets.

We have had to revert to using paper art straws because modern wheat straw just isn’t long enough. In 1815 the Brigade of Guards concealed themselves in a field of wheat before leaping out to rout the advancing French. If they’d tried that in 2015 it would not have been so much of a surprise.

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I’ve finished the McDonald’s Breakfast post on Pies and Prejudice, got the recipes together for the scone post I’m planning and sorted the cutters ready for making the saltdough poppies (part of the Big Autumn Project).

Finally we had home made blackberry jam and, after washing the outside of the jars (which seemed to have got very sticky in the filling process), divided last week’s jam between the group. It was a microwavable recipe – very quick and easy. It produces a slightly soft jam that tastes very fruity.

We spread it on some crackers left over from butter making. Everyone seemed to like it, including a few late summer wasps that were cruising around up to no good.

Currently we are waiting for the taxi. It’s twenty five minutes late already and we’ve been told it will be at least another 20 minutes. The original car, it seems, has broken down and they have been having trouble with the phones, because they always lose reception out here (though strangely enough, I don’t.)

They have several breakdowns every year and never seem to have phones that work.

I detect a slightly unlikely excuse.

I also detect the sort of service you get when the council puts a service out to the lowest bidder.

 

 

The Poppy Fields

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On the way back from Scarborough on Friday we passed a couple of fields full of poppies. They may have been growing organic grain, or they may just have forgotten to spray. I don’t suppose it matters in the end, because it was the poppies, not the husbandry system that I was interested in.

I’ve been looking for some good shots of poppies for a month or so now, since deciding on the Big Autumn Project. From that you may deduce that we are going to be doing something on poppies.

Did you know that  poppy seed can lay dormant for over 50 years? Some people go as far as to claim 80 or 90 years and it’s recently become popular to suggest they may be able to lay dormant for 100 years. I can believe that; there isn’t a lot of difference between 80, 90 and 100 years. Of course, the figure of 100 years lines up nicely with the centenary of the Great War, and this may have more to do with the 100 year figure than any botanical fact.

Despite this suspicion it’s interesting to think that poppies may be germinating now that were laid down as seeds whilst the war was still on.

Anyway, here are some photographs. The light was just going and the wind was getting up, so they aren’t brilliant, but at least the Big Autumn Project will have some photographs to support it. Julia has promised to do a bit of messing about with the photos – they won’t look sharper but they will end up looking brighter.

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Poppies and Partridges

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Sorry it’s a blurred photo of the partridges, but they made off as soon as I stepped outside. After a season of being shot at they are a bit sensitive about people pointing things at them. They pottered across the yard, but were disappointed to find that we are now keeping the poultry food more secure – no more free feeds!

They are eating grit from the roadway to help with digestion. Because they don’t have teeth birds break their food down by using grit in a muscular stomach known as the gizzard. This grit eating behaviour is used in medicating red grouse.

As a result of that link I now know much more than I want to know about gizzards and their traditional culinary uses. Having only ever used them in making gravy I’m amazed at the variety of uses. I say “amazed” but maybe in the case of pickled turkey gizzards “appalled” may be a better word.

The grit used to grind (known as insoluble grit or flint grit when you feed it to poultry) is different from the grit fed to laying hens to help with egg shell production (known as soluble grit or oyster shell).

Yes, as I wrote that I too was wondering what sort of person knows these things.

And then there were the poppies. I’m trying to photograph poppies at the moment but wind and rain and poor light are all making it difficult.

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Poppy and chamomile
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Buzzards, bees and bird song

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It feels like summer has finally arrived, though I do realise that I’ve said that before.

The weather station reports and outside temperature of 19 degrees C, the sky is clear and the wind is little more than a baby’s breath (or 2 km per hour from the south, if you prefer facts to fancy).

We tidied up for  Open Farm Sunday and the farmer’s mother is having a significant birthday (and party) towards the end of the month, so there is a lot of gardening going on. She’s actually having two parties (one for family and another for people she likes, as I keep telling her) and I hope I have that sort of stamina when I’m 80.

The downside of all this uncoordinated activity is that the thistles earmarked for goldfinch food and most of the “wild” poppies have been removed. We have some great self-seeded poppies, including shades or red and mauve, and quite a selection of doubles with big pom-pom flowers. Correction, we had some great self-seeded poppies.

The paths between the “trees” in the “woodland” are cut (which means we have mowed between the sticks in the field), the wheat is beautifully green (probably the result of too much rain – you know how farmers are) and the trees in the agroforestry scheme are looking good in their rows.

The general effect is one of standing in the parkland surrounding a stately home.

When we arrived I stood and watched for a few minutes. A buzzard was wheeling overhead, the bees were buzzing in the flower beds (their first major appearance this year) and a blackbird was singing from the hedge.

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Wild flowers

A grumpy goldfinch was twittering as it perched on a virtually empty feeder. It stared at me accusingly. I stared back, and did not refill the feeder. I do like birds but I’m not going to be bullied by something that weighs less than my watch.

What a difference a day makes

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It’s been a busy week. We had lots of people through, as you may have deduced from the blog, and pictures of pizzas. The pigs had the best idea, as you can see in the photo – just sunbathe and let the world pass by.

Our usual Quercus groups were in on Monday and Wednesday (with an adult pizza-making class in the evening as well), seated yoga on Thursday, school on Tuesday, school on Thursday (fitted round the yoga as much as we could) and group with mixed disabilities on Friday. There were 62 kids making pizza on Tuesday, meaning we were taking the pizzas out of the oven, washing the trays and handing them over to the next group while they were still warm.

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Pizza as far as the eye could see

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And more pizza…

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Wild flower mix

That was the good stuff.

Sadly, that sort of throughput, plus a few other odds and ends, brings a lot of problems too, and when you don’t have time to stop and deal with them they can  pile up and spoil the atmosphere. The heat hasn’t helped either, with petty arguments among the group members and a constant refrain of “It’s too hot.”

That’s the difference a day makes – a few degrees cooler and with a few hours to sit down and do things the whole outlook changes. A miserable Friday night has changed to a happy Saturday without much effort.

It’s a lesson I learnt a long time ago. Unfortunately I’ve never managed to memorise it for future use.

I’m also suffering a crisis of confidence about the blog. It was meant to be about Quercus Community and our activities, but as somebody said a while ago, it’s all over the place. I can’t remember the exact words, which were kinder than that, but the truth is that there is no central theme.

My initial aim was to write about the group, the members of the group and what we do. Unfortunately it isn’t easy writing about people who might read what you say about them (I am not always tactful even when I have time to think about things and edit them) and when these people are vulnerable adults the difficulties are magnified. That’s when it became a bit of a gardening, cooking and sustainability blog, followed by the blog that complains about modern life.

It’s a miracle that I actually have any followers when you think about the mistakes I make. Does anybody have any ideas on a direction to take? I’m thinking that it needs to get away from my opinions and back to Care Farming (though I seem to be the only Care Farm about when I search other blogs). That could take in outside care, gardening, foraging, composting and cooking so it wouldn’t be a major change. Might include a few nature notes too – we’ve been getting some good butterflies and have enough jackdaws lurking round for pig and poultry food we’re beginning to resemble the set of The Birds – had a flock of around 70 last night and frequently have 40-50 round the pig pen.

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