7:42pm Monday 8th March 2010
Or so I thought. Sunday 7 March was officially a sunny day and here at least in East Anglia it was almost warm if you stood in the sun around midday. Today was more of a disappointment. As I fed the animals this morning I noticed that the dear hens had pulled up a daffodil bulb (don’t let anyone tell you that gardening and free range hens mix – only if you have very large well established plants). I went to push it back in the ground by poking my fingers into the earth and nearly broke them. It was as hard as rock and fully frozen and remained so all day long. No wonder the grass looks depressed and the buds are only promising (but not delivering) to come out.
But yesterday was glorious. And I didn’t have anywhere in particular to be and although there was lots to do, nothing was absolutely demanding. It goes without saying that the poultry, ponies and outside cats have to be fed, and let out and cleaned out (depending on species!).
I also filled up all the bird food containers and chopped some apple for the black birds as well. I know I keep talking about birds but they have had such a dreadful winter and I’m trying to help them as much as I can. (I take some wheat into the village for the wild birds in the pony field as well).
Then I collected the eggs. The old girls (four years old) are now laying two eggs a day between four of them, fairly respectable, and the cross bred young hens are laying everywhere and anywhere. So once again we have a bit of a surplus of eggs. But best news of all, the Abacot Ranger ducks have started laying at last. Two moderate sized, pointy ended duck eggs were in their duck pen when I let them out on Sunday. I’m going to keep a count of how many they lay – there are just two girls. I really enjoy cooking and my mother was a great cook (but hopeless needlewoman which describes me as well). She used to hand raise pork pies and make sausage rolls at the local butchers. Fearless in the kitchen, it’s rubbed off on me and I expect anything I cook to behave itself and turn out well, which normally it does. So on Sunday I thought I would make a game pie with the pigeons from the neighbouring field. There’s quite a lot of these in my freezer from last spring when quite literally hundreds of pigeons descended on the rape field next to the house. Because my partner would prefer to shoot them himself rather than have people he doesn’t know shooting next to the house, he offered to do this (though he is less keen on shooting now – a bit like Sir Peter Scott who gave up wildfowling for conservation). Result was a freezer of pigeon and a scurry to find some pigeon recipes. Step up to the plate Jusrol who provided a super recipe in a local magazine which included red wine, butter, pancetta ( bacon is fine) as well as game meat. I made two huge pies so froze one of them and it was easy to do and really satisfying.
The recipe also called for parsley and I was able to go into the greenhouse where my winter herbs are enjoying a greenhouse heater, and pick some fresh. We ate the pie with roasted squashes which had kept very well all winter.
Thinking of food, I then went to check on the bees to see how well they had got on with the fondant I put in there a couple of weeks ago. They had had a good go at it but there was still some left so have marked the calendar to check again in two weeks. They were out flying last week but rather lazily as I think it was so cold. Time then to turn to the empty chicken houses and thoroughly scrub them out prior to spraying them for red mite. They are drying (or freezing) in the yard now waiting for this to happen next weekend. We also bought some fruit bushes from a local supermarket and so these too were planted together with some more bulbs to naturalise. At last I finally cleaned the saddlery that Jade, my welsh cob, used at the show back in June. Yes that’s June last year. It’s only hung in the kitchen for 9 months. There’s quite a gap now where it was, I had become quite used to walking round it. I also cleaned a selection of boots and shoes, all covered in mud (I was reminded of how bad they were on Friday when I went to the dentist and couldn’t find a pair that were clean enough to go into a dental surgery). There’s still plenty more tack to clean including a lovely stallion harness I bought from a car boot and that needs a really good oiling.
In the evening I watched between my fingers, the documentary on channel four about over fishing and it was very upsetting. It is horrible to see big fish like tuna taking so long to die. Fish might be good for people but it needs sourcing sustainably in the same way that we source free range meat or grow our own. I’ll certainly be looking on labels and checking out the Marine Conservancy website for details of sourcing fish. They do a little pocket guide which is very handy and free – check out www.fishonline.org. Particularly look for the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) logo. In medieval times, all big houses had a fish pond, carp I think, but although we have revisited the past to revive many “self-sufficent” practices, fish does not appear to be one of them – unless of course you are doing this already. If you are please do get in touch and tell us what you do.
On Saturday we went to “Feast of the East” at Childford Hall Vineyards and it is astonishing the diversity of foods being produced in a small but professional way in our eastern counties. I was amazed to meet our local farmers who have an organic vegetable business that I didn’t know about and they gave me a stored pumpkin to try. Marriage’s flour did a very good breadmaking demo – breadmaking really is easy, it just takes a bit of planning to fit it into a day but once you’ve done that, it’s straight forward and reliable to make. It was a breathtakingly beautiful day and Chilford Hall have a rookery high up in some old trees. The sound of the rooks and the trees against the bright blue sky was an image to treasure. I had to come home with a bottle of English wine – I really enjoy English wine and the slightly “rainy” taste it seems to have. Its not a full on wine like its European cousins but a subtle, evocative flavour which I think is perfect on summer evenings. There is always a vineyard or two at the RWAS Smallholder and Garden Festival 15-16 May at Builth Wells, Wales. We are looking forward to that and I’m sorting out some things to put in the auction sale – made a nice little bit of money last year towards my poultry and this year I want to buy a polytunnel. Spring must be just around the corner …..
"Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." (Cree Indian saying)
Liz is reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier as part of her Open University, Twentieth Century Texts and A Cornish Year by Smallholder’s David Chapman. Next weekend she is going to a western taster rider day at Sovereign Horses, March organised by the British Horse Society.
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