the accidental smallholder :: diary archives

Biscuits, oil and wax

Lorna and I are on holiday Friday, Monday and Tuesday. Our schools are closed for a casual day and two in-service training days, so if the schools are closed I'm off too. From 1st October, I reduced my working hours to termtime plus 10 days. It's a bit weird - I've never not worked full-time, but I think I'll manage to amuse myself!

Yesterday, after Lorna and I had walked the dogs for an hour and a half, I spent late morning and afternoon in the garden. It was a seriously nice day. The roses have been pruned, some harder than others. I am a serious pruner - when in doubt, prune! We have a lovely climbing rose that was really pathetic for about three years. Last winter, it got a severe pruning and this summer, it was fabulous. It might be coincidence, of course...

I took the opportunity to sweep up leaves in the "courtyard garden". It's "in development". I'll put up a diary entry with before, during and after photos, when we get to after! Otherwise, I had a general potter - hoed the soft fruit bed, swept up the paths, tidied the shed. It was very nice indeed but I have to fight the urge to be TOO tidy, so the wee bugs and beasties have somewhere to overwinter.

Weatherwise, today was fine until about 11.30am, when it started to rain. We were almost back at the stables after our ride, so missed the worst of it.

Dan was in the garden this morning tidying up the vegetable garden. He's lifted Smokey's mangels, so he can have these over the next few weeks.

We've been oiling and waxing the worktops in the kitchen and the floor in the hall respectively today. I feel really guilty about not doing it before - it was easier than I expected and really has made a difference. Sometimes it's hard to find time for indoor jobs until this time of year. My excuse, anyway.

Finally, I made biscuits today. There was an article in this month's "Country Smallholding" with biscuit recipes. Since none contained hydrogenated vegetable oil, I thought I'd try them. I've made "Fruity Flapjacks" and "Peanut Squares". If they're OK, I'll post the recipes.

Gallery

Dan and I spent a happy hour tonight adding images to the Gallery. Apologies for the dull descriptions!

Christmas is coming!

I expect you'll have noticed that Christmas is coming! We had a fall of snow today. It wasn't much but it fell on frozen ground and, not surprisingly, froze. Conditions underfoot are pretty awful, so no riding today.

It's really miserable ouside - cold and damp. Dan went running and took the dogs. Tess wasn't all that keen to go and when they returned, it was a fight to see who could get closest to the fire. Dan didn't have a chance.

I've done three things in preparation for Christmas this weekend. Firstly, I've made mincemeat. It will be used for mince pies, for inclusion in apple crumble and baked apples and in our Christmas cake. Secondly, I've made our Christmas puddings, four in all; one 2lb, one 1lb and two half pound. They're currently steaming away and will be ready about 6pm. This is the only time of the year I'm allowed in the kitchen other than to pick up humble kitchen porter duties.

I did decide a couple of months ago that I would just buy puddings and stuff but I like to make our own and it's so easy. I use Delia's Christmas recipes and they never fail. Usually, I make the Classic Christmas cake but this year I'm going to try her Last Minute Christmas Mincemeat Cake. If it turns out OK, I'll put on a photograph.

Every year, I say I'm not going to get sucked in to Christmas but I can't help it. I despise the commercialism and the excess but there's a bit of me that wants it to be as it should be.

Anyway, the third thing I've done is bought Christmas presents for our six boys. Dan has two nephews and I have four great-nephews. (I don't look old enough to be a great-aunt. Honest.) Every year we toil with what to give them - my four live in Lancashire so we don't see them very often - so in the last couple of years, we've given them money. This year, they're getting something different!!

On behalf of each of them, we've bought a brood of chickens for a small farmer in Africa. We've done this via an organisation called FARM-Africa, which supports small farmers in Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia.

If you're wondering what to buy for someone who has everything, (and let's face it, many of us have everything that's important) the site is worth a look. You can buy a goat for £30 or a brood of chickens for £10. You get a model goat or chicken and a pack explaining what the projects are about and a farmer in Africa gets the livestock. You can buy via FARM Africa's related site at Farm Friends

Good, huh?

Poor Tess!

Once our dogs had passed the puppy chewy stage, we bought them bean bags from a company called Barka Parka. They are probably one of our best ever buys.

The bags are made of heavy cotton drill and have a top cover that's easily removable for washing. However, the material seems to shrug off hair and dirt and a good shake usually renders them pretty clean.

The dogs love them. However, so does Homer. He has adopted the one by the radiator, much to Tess's chagrin. Homer's really funny. He loves the bed but seems to find the texture funny to walk on so he sort of pounces from the floor into the middle.

So, today I ordered two cat sized beds; one for Homer and one for Copper. Copper has a little sheepskin bed but it gets really dirty and hairy, so hopefully she'll like her new bean bag. We should have the new beds by Christmas.

Knowing cats, there is a possibility that Homer will continue to occupy Tess's bed and Tess will be perched on a cat sized bed. But we'll cross that bridget when we come to it.

Curiousity makes the cat

Now the nights have drawn in, and there's less to do in and around the smallholding, it's time to turn our focus back to this site a little. We've loads of gallery images to add, and we're trying loads of new recipes, so these will feature soon.

This entry is about Cas though, as nosy a cat as you could ever meet. Leave anything open and he's into it - cardboard box, garage door, coal bunker, greenhouse, anything. More than once we've opened the car in the morning to go to work, only to find Cas sauntering out as if it were his choice to spend the night there. Here he is in his new basket, on top of the dresser, a good seven feet off the ground. Goodness knows why, just because it was there I suppose, like a good mountaineer.

One other thing I have to mention, although I'll get lynched by the wife for sullying TAS with talk of games, is Half-Life 2 which was released today. Not only is it a magnificent piece of software engineering, and loads of fun to boot, the people who wrote it seem to really care about their customers, a trait lacking in many walks of commercial life these days.