Not more frost! (From Smallholder)

Not more frost!

8:11pm Saturday 30th January 2010 in

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Casual readers to my blog will think I am obsessed with the weather. They’re right. I am. I think all smallholders are extremely weather conscious bordering on obsessed. The weather dictates so much what you are going to do or perhaps more accurately, how you are going to do it.

I know that every single day I am going to feed and water the poultry, and the ponies but on a dry, warmish day, this is a straightforward, happy task involving normal amounts of clothing and taking up a certain amount of time.

When it freezes or snows, the clothing alone becomes a problem as I pile on layers before going outside. Once outside water is no longer a question of turning on the tap and using the hose. It becomes at best a two bucket at a time trip across the yard to refill all the water containers including the duck splash, at worst, a bucket in the kitchen sink trying not to spill it all over the floor type activity. (Have you noticed that however careful you are, at some point the bucket will get caught on the taps and splash over the floor, compounding the problem still further as you then have to wipe up the muddy, wet mess when you have finished thawing out waters). This can double or treble the time it takes to do this task and also mean that you have to do it again in the afternoon as it has probably frozen again.

Down the field it involves thumping at the water trough with a hammer (or handy spade that I carry in my car at this time of the year) and removing the biggest pieces by hand so it doesn’t freeze quite so quickly. Question, do you do this with gloves on and get them soaked or take gloves off and feel like you are going to lose your fingers to frost bite?

It can only get worse because the ball mechanism in the trough also freezes so eventually either the remaining water is solid or they have drunk it and no more can be obtained from the water supply so that then involves lugging water carriers down to the field, hulking them over the gate (or battling with a frozen padlock, whichever seems easiest) and dragging them across the field to the trough.

Eventually I can promise you one carrier will spring a leak which you won’t notice until you take it out of the car, half empty with the rest of the water swilling around your car. It will be at this point that you wish you had taken out the various papers, coats, torches etc which will be lying sodden in the water and need dragging out of the car to dry, again in the cold, thus making the simple task of checking the ponies’ water in the fields, something of such complexity that you feel it has taken most of the day.

And that’s before you start on how much longer it takes to feed, to muck out and just generally do everything you normally do in sub-zero temperatures wearing some kind of restrictive duvet while trying not to slip on the ice.

And did I even mention how long it takes to thaw out the vehicle to visit the ponies that are out in the field? Never mind the sheer courage it takes to negotiate crossing the bypass on icy, untreated side roads.

Rain too presents its own problems. You have plenty of water but you also have plenty of mud…… Little surprise then that the weather is of such importance. And at haymaking time it becomes a major scientific project to forecast the necessary five days of drying weather needed to get a good crop. But that’s for the future.

So at minus 4 this evening and having undertaken what can only be described as a hazardous, hair raising journey to Cambridge, 29 miles away, this morning, I do hope this cold snap is just that, a short snap. Unfortunately our journey to Cambridge really was necessary otherwise nothing on earth would have convinced me to negotiate the largely untreated roads from Fenland to the City Centre.

This week I was listening to Radio 4 around seven in the morning and I heard Government Chief Scientific advisor, John Beddington, discussing the challenges we face in feeding a growing world population. He said the solution is not a simple one but it doesn’t have to be high-tech and that current technology can be utilised. Key issues he states which need to be addressed in the developing world are infrastructure, education and access to seed. He also highlighted that food waste must be tackled as well in all countries, as you know food waste is one of my biggest concerns. Turning to the issue of whether not eating meat is a way to better food security he took the view that we have grasslands that cannot be ploughed and are ideal for grazing animals.

At the same time I heard that the Head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacque Diouf, said that the world must double food production by 2050 to ensure there is food for 9 billion people. Josette Shearan, head of the UN World Food Progam called for food security (access to sufficient food for all) to be put at the top of the agenda.

Surely reducing the food waste and looking at consumption must be a priority for the western world before we just blindly produce more and more food to be thrown away? And the ability to grow some of our own food where we can – and we know that most of us can do produce something ranging from a grow bag of salad leaves to a pig for the freezer where there is more land.

Learning to use leftovers is also part of the overall picture. Last week we had a savory bread pudding using some old bacon which I wanted to be sure we cooked thoroughly, some old cheese, some stale bread and some of our eggs – it was delicious and turned our potential waste food into a warming and tasty meal.

We also had a chick pea stew into which I chucked anything in the fridge that had been hanging round a bit and also used up the last of our greenhouse grown peppers and some greenhouse fresh herbs. It’s becoming a challenge to me to use leftovers creatively and I would love to swop recipes with anyone who also relishes this challenge.

Liz Wright is reading The Diary of a Farmer’s Wife 1796-97 from the Good Life Press. She is still watching Logging with horses, oxen and mules from Old Pond and still cannot believe how well the oxen behave Liz did actually get on her welsh cob last weekend which due to work and weather had not been ridden since before Christmas and the mare was very calm about it. She was still calm when Liz tried again during the week this looks like a regular weekend event now. Liz and Mick will be taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch that the RSPB have organized. (Just another reminder about the Big Garden Birdwatch 30th and 31st January there were more details in January Smallholder magazine although the phone number should be 01767 693680 and not as printed – or check out the rspb website).

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